I love South Essex

Strolling on West Canvey Marshes this morning, the flat, damp expanse of grazing marshes filling the space between the snaking mud channel of Pitsea creek, and the Canvey Way Avenue of Remembrance, as the A130 becomes when it crosses onto the “island,” and in the shadow of the huge former Coryton Oil Refinery, and its docks, I was struck by something. South Essex, you are flipping beautiful. Never change what you are.

Black Tailed Godwit at West Canvey Marshes

The water on the reserve was high, and there were puddles on the paths. These wet coastal meadows are a typical local habitat, sculpted by centuries of moderately intensive human land use, the coastal grazing marshes. The reserve is still, declare the information boards the RSPB have installed about, a working farm, and cattle graze its lush swards. The pool beside the A130 was attended by busy Black Tailed Godwits, prodding about on its grassy margins, and Lapwings stood on its banks.  The gentle mews of Common Gull, and the whistles of Wigeon, striking ducks with bold yellow stripes on tops of their heads seemed to fill the air, a winter chorus, despite the constant competition from the traffic just a few metres away.   These calls are evocative of the cold winter air, these birds have travelled from distant breeding grounds in Scandinavia, or Siberia, places compared to which these windswept marshes are relatively hospitable winter habitat.

I wander on as a trio of chirping Meadow Pipits fly overhead, more seasonal refugees from the uplands. Stonechats are here too, bold, striking and confiding. Stonechats watch you as you watch them. They seem to keep an eye on the observer, and occasionally take off to snatch one of the few insects still active in late Autumn, from the air or off the ground.  As I neared the next hide I was aware of the sky filling with birds, Godwit, all the ducks, Lapwings, and smaller Starlings, so often seen in the company of Lapwings on South Essex marshes at this time of year, and previously hidden among the long grass, all taking to the air.   Presumably disturbed by all the commotion, a Grey Heron joined them too.  They wheeled and climbed, alarm calls echoing, staying airborne, indicating the presence of an aerial predator. I could not spot one.  In the photographs of the flock the roofs of passing vans on the A130 are visible, but I was not aware of them at the time. This was wild Canvey. I sat down in the hide, and as I did so the birds began to settle again, Wigeon landing on the water en masse in front of me, hundreds of them.  A circling Marsh Harrier seemed too distant to be the cause of their collective alarm. A couple of ducks took off from the other side of the water, and a shape raced toward me across the water. I couldn’t make it out at first but within a few seconds I was eye to yellow eye with a Sparrowhawk. We seemed to hold each others’ gaze for a second as the raptor climbed a little, effortlessly, giving a piping alarm call of its own, and passed over my head, and over the top of the screen, dropping in behind a hedgerow somewhere between where I sat and the Oil Refinery, and was gone from view. I have no regrets about lacking the presence of mind to point my camera at it, that would have deprived me of the eye-to-eye moments I had with the bird, and the breathless, heart racing moment.  I hadn’t recognised the bird at first because its outline was broken by the dead starling in the hawk’s talons. This was a stunning wild predator, in a stunning wild landscape.

Flocking Wigeon, with passing traffic.

Walking down the path, between the hedges, crossing the bridge over the reed beds where a few short weeks ago Natalie and I had been watching the swallows gather to roost before their flight to sub-Saharan Africa, now long gone, I could not help but wonder at this oasis, and the beautiful, underrated part of the country into which it fits, the Estuary England, the South Essex Marshes. Like so many South Essex wildlife sites, West Canvey does not exist separately from the urban and industrial places which surround it, but merges seamlessly with them to form a wider landscape, continuous and stunning and interwoven.  It is not far from Basildon, and is one of a suite of marshes the RSPB helps to look after locally. Here and in the wider area, from Fortress Purfleet, known to the RSPB as Rainham Marshes and sitting West of the Dartford Crossing, to the wintering flocks of Brent Geese and Turnstone which hang around at high tide at the foot of Southend Pier in the East, and Wallasea and Foulness Islands beyond, both noted for their wintering raptors, these sites are settle easily into a landscape shaped by human activity along the river. So many, such as the chalk habitats at Chafford Gorges near Thurrock, once a chalk quarry, or the new invertebrate reserve managed by BugLife at Canvey Wick, home to rare bees and other invertebrates, once an oil refinery, exist on Brownfield sites, shaped by industry, and these industries existed here because of the river, connecting London with the open sea.

Stonechat on Canvey Island

South Essex, I thought, as I became surrounded by the squeaking contact calls of busy long-tailed tits around me, you are bloody gorgeous and I love you. Then I thought, oh look, a Goldcrest.

Pitsea Creek.

Fingringhoe Wick in February

About a fortnight ago, I went with the Beautiful Bee Girl to the amusingly named Essex Wildlife Trust reserve at Fingringoe Wick, near Colchester.  We parked in the gravel car park beside the visitor’s centre.  We’d heard there was a bittern which had been seen in recent days from one of the hides overlooking the site’s main body of fresh water, a small lake just a stone’s throw from the centre.   I'd understood Bitterns were best seen in the afternoons, when they move between their feeding and their roosting sites, but the Bee Girl, who had yet to see a Bittern despite having spent a lot of her time raising money for them, wanted to check the hide first.  To my shame, I’d rather hoped to get out to the river Colne to look at the waders, and some grebes which had been seen in the channel.  Luckily, we decided to do it her way.  Armed with our coffees, we made our way through the late February drizzle to the hide. The bench was packed with birders and volunteers, eyes to their telescopes and binoculars.  The volunteer from the visitors’ centre talked us to the spot where the bird had, seconds before, begun to climb up on a tussock of reeds. Of course, it took a while to find the vertically striped, straw-coloured heron among the vertical, straw coloured Phragmites which lined the opposite shore. But find it we did, standing on its tussock. Through the scope we could see the dark lines running down its face, its’ long, grey beak. We could see its excellent camouflage, the camouflage which makes this scarce heron one of the trickiest birds to see in the country.  Centuries ago they were common, especially in the huge fens of East Anglia, but reedbeds are much scarcer now, and though individuals like this one can winter in relatively small sections, breeding pairs need large expanses of unbroken reeds. Efforts are underway to restore and create large reedbeds, projects such as Wicken 2100 and the Great Fen Project, both in Cambridgeshire, may see the species re-establish properly in South East England.  Staffordshire Wildlife Trust is raising money to buy Tucklesholme Quarry to help them establish there.  Have a google and give them some money. The Beautiful bee girl did, and the bitterns rewarded her with a sighting! 

I wouldn't normally trouble my blog with a record shot. But Bittern!

 There were a few other birds out on the lake, including Shovellers, again displaying, circling each other on the water, and a confiding little grebe swam close to the hide. Teal lurked among the reeds, resting, heads on wings, but all was pretty quiet and we decided to head down to the saltings and the Colne estuary.  We passed the boardwalk near to which I had seen one of my first Turtle Doves a few summers ago, which was underneath a pond swollen by the very wet winter.  The spring was in the air already though, and a few daffodils had begun to open in the wildlife garden beside the centre.

Later in the day, the flooded boardwalk. 

On our way to the saltings we came upon one of the scarcer habitats at Fingringhoe, the lichen and moss carpet that grows on the poor, very sandy soils beside some of the old military installations, which have fallen back to nature on the reserve.   These sandy heaths, fringed with Gorse and Brambles and Concrete, are rather lush. Amongst the green mosses grows the beautiful and intricately branching Cladonia lichens, the so-called reindeer moss.  These sensitive plants are found only on very nutrient poor , and often acid soils, often appearing where there is very little soil at all. Lichens dominate the vegetation of shingle apposition beaches like Blakeney Point and Dungeness. They are also found on windswept tundras. Natalie the bee girl was immediately photographing the beautiful micro-world found down in the moss and lichen carpet as the clouds parted and the sun burst out above us.

Lichen and Moss carpet.

<3

We stepped up to one of the benches overlooking the beautiful Colne Estuary. The water seemed to become curiously blue, as the sky cleared.  Skeins of the locally ubiquitous Brent Goose, something of an overlooked speciality of coastal Essex in winter, flew past, out toward the estuary. These dark geese fly in from Scandinavia and Siberia to spend the winter in the relative warmth of the Essex coast.  Across the stretch of water were a cluster of gleaming white birds, with the scope we could identify them as Avocets, the elegant black and white waders which are familiar from the RSPB logo, and an iconic conservation success here in Britain.  Some appeared to swim in the rising water, others waded on the mudflats. We had only been watching them for a moment when they took to the air, and departed downriver after the skeins of geese. A couple of oystercatchers were left behind.  A fishing boat, pursued by a flock of gulls, headed downriver too, and we scanned the flock for interesting species. Sometimes Kittywakes or Mediterranean Gulls can be seen flying behind the fishing boats, but we only saw the ubiquitous Black Headed Gulls, Herring Gulls and a few brown juveniles of various common species.

Passing shipping.

We headed down to a hide on the waters edge, where several Great Crested and Little Grebes could be seen out on the open water, and the bones of an old wooden boat protruded from the sand. Wigeon and Teal whistled on the banks, and a small party of curlew flew by.  An interesting looking grebe turned out to be a curiously grey, but nevertheless lovely Little Grebe.

Boat Bones.

We were aware that time was marching on so we headed back toward the centre, eventually finding a hide overlooking the scrape, a small body of water cut into the saltmarsh and fenced off from it. A section of fence appeared to have come down in the recent strong winds.  The hide turned out to be the best decision we ever made. The saltmarshes lay before us, full of Brent Geese, beautiful Lapwings, handsome, stately Curlews and busy Dunlins and Starlings. On the waters edge sat a handful of Golden Plovers, rather scarce, handsome birds which will soon be returning to their upland breeding grounds, which include the moors of Northern England.  The light was beginning to fade, and the saltmarsh was bathed in golden light, the trees beside the hide casting long shadows over it. A Barn Owl drifted silently past the windows, just a few metres away. A pair of handsome Red Breasted Merganser, one of the most stunning, elegantly punk looking ducks you will ever see, floated out on the water, toward the centre of the channel. They are locally uncommon, and the ragged green crest of the male sets them apart from other ducks. They are closely related to the handsome Goosander which is becoming so familiar in the North of England.  Not long after a dark shape, wings raised in a slight V shape drifted over the marsh. The grebes Every duck, gull and wading bird smaller than a curlew took to the sky,  which filled with the shapes of hundreds of Lapwing, Golden Plover, Oystercatcher, Teal and Widgeon, and echoed with their alarm calls. The Marsh Harrier, apparently uninterested, continued flying, flapping lazily Southwards and Eastwards.  A couple of Black Headed gulls made mobbing passes as the large raptor flew on.  

The Saltings.

The last species we added to our list was a handsome bullfinch, and, with the reserve gates apparently locked at five, we headed back to the centre. Natalie discussed lichens, and attempted to ID a couple of specimens with the centre volunteers while I watched Little Egrets and cormorants fly off into the sunset to roost. We left, reminded of why Fingringhoe, that beautiful spot on the Colne estuary, remains one of my favourite reserves in Essex.

oh yeah, linkies.

Bringing Bitterns back to Staffordshire!

http://www.justgiving.com/tucklesholme

And the reserve this blog is actually about, which I properly recommend, one of the most beautiful places in Essex.

http://www.essexwt.org.uk/reserves/fingringhoe-wick