Nature Features

The Wat Tyler Country Park in Pitsea now have a special watch point set up by the RSPB.

It will allow visitors to the park to watch the graceful kestrels in action, hovering, diving and flying about.

Glenn Jacobs from the RSPB says the park is a great place for the birds due to plenty of prey: "We're actually looking at the old county landfill site. Which is a piece of really old scrub land and really good for animals as you don't get people on it.

The kestrels nesting site

"The kestrels have been here for some time as the chicks were quite developed. A quick phone call to the powers-that-be allowed us to set up a watch point," he says.

"If you come back here in the evenings you can see the kestrels coming back to the nest box and watch them feeding."

The birds like the area for its food: "They'll mainly eat voles and mice and it's a perfect habitat for these mammals. But they do also eat beetles and large moths. 

A poster near the new hyde

"Mouse or mammal urine has a substance in it that you can see under ultra violet light and the kestrels can see the trails of urine from high up, as they can see in ultra violet.

"The watch point is set up on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday between 11am - 5pm, so people can come down and look," he says.

BBC Essex's Renee Hockley-Byam has been along to see what she can spot with the RSPB's Glenn Jacobs. Click the link below to hear more: