7.
THE ESSEX MARSHES IN AUGUST
A visit to the marshes at this time of
year (August) can often be very lucrative,
but as we pushed our way through the crowds
at Burnham-on-Crouch on this hot, sticky day,
I felt more than a little pessimistic.
Worse than the crowds and the heat was that
the tide was rising and had already covered
the mud. I cursed my negligence in not
referring to a tide table. Everybody knows
high tide visits are not much good for birds.
Nevertheless we had come this far and
thus determined to walk along the sea wall
in a seaward direction. I began inspecting
every gull carefully, as they seemed to be
the only bird about, and soon separated a
few common gulls, by their greenish-yellow
bills, from the swarms of immature and
moulting black-headed gulls. Herring Gulls
were also present, their calls evoking
memories of Cornish cliffs and coves.
There was an abundance of butterflies,
hundreds of Wall Browns and Gatekeepers
gathered on the blooms of sea lavender, and
Small Whites rapidly flapped their wings in
a strange mating ritual. Fewer were the
yellower Large Whites and the small Essex
Skippers clinging to the stems of meadow
fescue grass. A treat for my eye was a lone
Peacock lazily flapping about the Ragwort
where the wasp coloured larvae of the Cinna-
bar moth fed.
As we neared the sea the weather and
the whole atmosphere of the marshes began to
change. A wind had swung in from the north
east with the tide, bringing the odd squall