Credit: Waves rolling onto the beach below the white chalk cliffs of Kingsgate Bay on the Isle of Thanet in Kent.
Our Coastal Flagship Species
9 June 2025
If you’re wondering who this cheeky chap is, it’s the first of our Coastal flagship species – the Common Blenny!
Also affectionately known as Sea Frogs, Blennies live in the shallow waters around our coast, and are one of the species you might end up spotting in a rockpool. They get their Sea Frog nickname from their ability to come right out of the water and shimmy their way over rocks, moving between pools of water to hunt for shrimps and ragworms, and other small marine organisms.
Not our coastal flagship species winner, but a real charmer nonetheless!
Common Blenny
Next up, our Coastal flagship species is the Turnstone.
You can see Turnstones all year round on the shorelines of the UK, but what you might not realise is that they are actually migratory, and that their constant presence is down to overlapping arrivals and departures, with some travelling back and forth to Northern Europe, and some to and from Canada and Greenland.
Turnstones are members of the sandpiper family, mottled brown in colour with a white underbelly and orange legs, and you’ll find them skittering along the shoreline, foraging for tiny invertebrates, larvae, small fish – even birds eggs and carrion. Marvellous additions to our Kentish coastal ecosystems!
Turnstone – Photo by Jim Higham
We had 2 seals as contenders for our flagship coastal species – the Grey seal and the Harbour seal, both of which we are lucky enough to have around our Kentish shores…but would you be able to tell the difference between them? Here’s a couple of pointers!
Grey seals are the bigger of the two seal species. They have a long sloping nose, eyes that sit slightly on the side of their head, and nostrils parallel to each other. Harbour seals, on the other hand, look…well…a bit more cute! With v-shaped nostrils and large eyes slightly more on the front of their head. Even their Latin name, Phoca vitulina translates as “plump calf”. Grey seals’ Latin name, Halichoerus grypus, translates as “hook-nosed sea-pig”….oh dear…
But we don’t have favourites, and both seals are spectacular creatures, we think you’ll agree!
Grey Seal
Harbour Seal
It’s time to reveal the winner of our Coastal flagship species – it is…the Curlew!
In Kent, you’re most likely to spot Curlews in winter, where they come to make the most of our relatively mild weather. You’ll find them wading on saltmarshes and tidal mud flats, where they feed on the small invertebrate species that live in the shallow waters. Curlew numbers have drastically declined in recent years, as their habitat has declined, and the UK supports around 30% of the total Western European population in winter.
In Kent, we are lucky to have a number of projects that are working to support waders like the Curlew, like Elmley Nature Reserve on the Isle of Sheppey, where this beautiful photograph was captured.
Curlew – Photo by Jim Higham
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