Nature Calls: Elmley marshes boast birds almost too exotic looking for this land

And they are not the only owls here. Long-eared owls roost deep in the small copse behind the pond by the car park, barn owls hunt here at dusk and, from autumn onwards, short-eared owls quarter the fields for voles.

We pass the schoolhouse on the track down to The Swale but we don’t see the little owls. From the tideway we can hear the whistling of wigeon – ducks that overwinter here having bred as far north as Iceland and Siberia.

The drake has a chestnut head with a gold crest running from the top of its bill to its crown. They are chunky, like tugboats, and they will flock here in their many hundreds, their mellow call a feature of winter marshes and mudflats. 

The tide is fully high as we approach, the Sheppey Crossing away to our right, carrying the A249 high above the water to the mainland. On the opposite shore are factories – tall chimneys and taller cranes.

Tufts of grass break the surface where the Swale is at its most shallow and around these gather shorebirds seeking refuge from the rising water.

There are six species – in order of size, largest to smallest, they are curlew, black-tailed godwit, avocet, grey plover, turnstone and dunlin. Each feed according to their bill – or have a bill according to their feeding.

The curlew’s is hugely long and downcurved, the godwit’s not quite as long and pretty-much dead straight. Both are used to poke about in the mud for invertebrates. The avocet, meanwhile, uses its markedly upturned bill to sweep across and through the water or loose sediment, again for prey such as crustaceans and worms. 

Grey plover and turnstone both have short, stubby bills they use to pick their prey – the former from the sand and mud, the latter by upending pebbles and the like. Dunlins have a medium-sized bill, which they use to pick organisms from the surface or just below it.

Turning back from the shore, the wind whistles through the phragmites reeds whose heads swish and glisten in the lowing sun.

A snipe zooms up and away from within the reedbed – its long bill unmistakeable. Another shoots up to follow it. Then two more. Then another six. It is as if someone is firing snipe like missiles. Another four follow, whirring on busy wings.

Alongside the reeds is a patch of teasel and on to the spiky heads a charm of 30 or so goldfinches lands, tinkling and twittering as they do.

These sociable birds have a red face followed by a white band then a black one and have a bright yellow flash on their wing with a white-spotted black tail. They are almost too exotic looking for this land.

They stab their fine, triangular bills into the husky teasel spikes to prise free the seeds.

They sun is right at our back now and the colours are even brighter and sharper – as if seen with new glasses – as bold as they ever will be.