Kent Ornithological Society Providing information about birds and birdwatching in Kent

• Chris Roome
• 1-May-2024
• Outdoor Meeting Reports

KOS Field Trips - 29th and 30th April 2024.

 Ray O’Reilly writes:-

“It is most unusual for me to lead two KOS Field Outings in three days, but this week was an exception as an additional meeting was held for folk that are working or studying full time.

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• Chris Roome
• 12-Jan-2024
• Survey news

BTO Winter Gull Survey (WinGS) 2024-25

CALLING KENT LAROPHILES!

Some key sites still not allocated or need more volunteers for this winter’s count – target date January 21^st. 

The Key Sites concerned are: -

*Inner Thames (Gravesend-Dartford)

*Stour Valley

*Deal-Walmer

*Folkestone-Hythe

 Please read on for for further information…

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• Chris Roome
• 21-Nov-2023
• Outdoor Meeting Reports

November 19th 2023 - KOS Field Trip to Dungeness 

 Ray O' Reilly, KOS Field Trip Organiser, writes:- "Yesterday, 19th November 2023, we carried out our monthly KOS Field Outing once again to Dungeness and it proved to be a fruitful venue.

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• Martin Collins
• 14-Oct-2023
• Society news

For those cooler days that will soon be here - beanie hats are now available from the online store.  

• Martin Collins
• 1-Oct-2023
• Society news

KOS is delighted to announce that members can now show their support for the society by purchasing and wearing a range of quality clothing displaying our KOS logo. Whether it is cool or warm there will be something suitable from our new partnership with Kent based and family run company ‘Logo That Polo’ for any birder wishing to show they are a member and KOS supporter.

There is a choice of garments and a range of colours, all with our iconic KOS Sandwich Tern logo designed by the well-known Kent bird artist – and a long time KOS member - Stephen Message. Using a sustainable sales model, every garment is sourced and branded to order so there will be no unsold clothing sitting wasted on shelving. All order processing is carried out by ‘Logo that Polo’ and a percentage of the income from sales is passed to KOS.

KOS Chair Andre Farrar: “I’m so grateful to our growing membership for all the support you give to KOS. I’ve often been asked if we could show off our logo on some merchandise – and now we can! As well as making KOS more visible across the county, each purchase helps to raise funds for the Society. “

To view the store please visit https://logothatpolo.co.uk/store/kosoc/ or follow the link from the website menu.

Please remember that as every item is produced to order it is essential to use the sizing guides available on the store website for each item.

• Kieron Palmer
• 22-Sep-2023
• All news

Leucistic Stonechat, by Mark Chidwick

The latest KOS Newsletter has been published with the articles below available to members:

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• Chris Roome
• 7-Sep-2023
• Society news

Asian Hornets (Vespa velutina)

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• Kieron Palmer
• 14-Jul-2023
• All news

The KOS is pleased to announce that we can now offer free membership to people under the age of 25 living in Kent, Essex, Surrey, Sussex or London.  This new category of membership includes access to the newsletter and members only website content. It does not include a physical copy of the Kent Bird Report that comes with a full membership, should you require this the membership can be upgraded at any point by contacting This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The free membership will expire on your 25th birthday when you will be able to convert to a full membership.  We regret that we cannot refund any memberships that have been paid this year but members under the age of 25 can change to the free membership from next January. 

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• Brendan Ryan
• 25-Jun-2023
• Society news

The RSPB are looking for interns at Seasalter and Blean 

https://volunteer.rspb.org.uk/opportunities/48952-intern-intern-blean-woods-and-seasalter-levels-sssi-nature-reserves-2023-06-14

• Martin Collins
• 4-Jun-2023
• All news

People will no doubt be aware that this terrible virus is still blighting our wild birds. Seabird surveys are revealing significant losses at some of the UK’s largest Gannet colonies and no doubt further bad news is to come concerning the scale of losses amongst Great Skuas and other affected species. Many non-seabird species have also succumbed to Avian Influenza, particularly Greylag and Canada Geese, raptors such as Common Buzzard and Gulls. So far this year it is Black-headed Gulls that are being badly hit with significant losses at many colonies, both inland and coastal, including Kent.

Monitoring the spread and scale of the virus is vitally important and this can easily be done by anyone (birders and other members of the public, not just reserve staff) by using the BirdTrack App. This allows both sick and dead birds to be reported, whereas Defra only receive reports of dead birds. Please note that there is no longer a threshold for the number of sick or dead birds that should be reported, so please report all sick and dead birds that you suspect have been infected by Avian Influenza. Proof of infection is not a prerequisite for reporting.