This page is in development. It will be an exploration of the animals and birds visitors can expect to see when visiting the canal.
Visit the canal on a gloomy November day and you would be forgiven for thinking it was a dead thing. But the water in it, the land around it and the sky above it are always teeming with life. As biodiversity plummets around the world, this narrow green corridor, and the access it gives to the Shorne marshes, becomes ever more valuable to the people of Gravesend, Higham and North Kent.
The animals on this page have all been spotted multiple times within the last two years, simply by passing through, and occasionally pausing and watching. Just for fun, each has been given an I SPY rating: if you see something with a 10 – count yourself very lucky!
Water vole
With its cute furry appearance, appealing aquatic behaviour and conservation-friendly lifestyle, you’d think everyone would love the water vole. But it has the great misfortune to resemble the brown rat. Even in the children’s classic, Wind in the Willows, the central vole character is nicknamed ‘Ratty.’ At worst, this mistake leads to hostility and persecution and at best it provokes indifference.
And yet these animals have suffered the most dramatic decline of any UK mammal over the last century. Their story is the story of our destruction of the country’s wetlands for housing and industry.
So their presence in the Thames and Medway Canal should be a source of excitement and pride. You are most likely to see them swimming across from bank to bank, although patient watching from bridges can provide glimpses of feeding at the entrance to a burrow. They are largely herbivorous, appear in the canal usually in March and disappear inside over winter.
And the rat thing? For a vole, look for a bluff, rounded body and a furry tail (rats’ tails are long and hairless). If you can see pink ears, it’s a rat.
I SPY rating: 6
Filmed by the canal in March 2026
(Wikipedia)
Grass snake
It is exciting to see any snake in the wild, and there seems to be a fair population of grass snakes living near the canal. You might find one crossing the towpath, swimming in the open water, or hunting for frogs in the reeds. They show a great deal of colour variation, from slate grey to green or even a kind of brown. Look for the flash of yellow or white at the back of the head, like a collar. You will see regular black marks of an indistinct shape, and if you catch a glimpse of the underside it will be much paler, almost white. Around a metre long is not unusual.
I SPY rating: 7