4
BRADWELL NOTEBOOK
As all the following observations on the area's
natural history were made by members of
Bradwell Bird Observatory, it might be a good
idea to begin this article with a brief history
of that establishment. It was founded in the
early 1950's, at a time when there was great
enthusiasm for the study of bird migration.
Several other observatories, such as Dungeness
in Kent, and Spurn Point, on the Humber estuary
began operating at the same time and the
founders of Bradwell hoped that its situation,
on the southern tip of the Blackwater estuary,
would ensure a scale of migration on a par with
that witnessed in those localities. Their
hopes were soon to be disappointed, as
Bradwell, like the rest of the Essex coastline,
tends to be overshadowed by the jutting shores
of Norfolk and Kent and many migrants crossing
the North Sea are deflected towards those two
counties. Nevertheless, it has proved to be
one of the best birdwatching sites in the
County. There is certainly plenty of room to
manoeuvre, as to the left of the Observatory
the seawall winds westwards along the bank of
the River Blackwater to Maldon, eighteen miles
distant, and to the right, stretches away
towards Holliwell Point, at the mouth of the
River Crouch, some eight miles from the
Observatory. Wartime photographs taken by the
Luftwaffe, when the Germans were preparing to
invade, show that much of the Dengie peninsula
was then covered by small, rectangular,
thickly-hedged fields, but the agricultural
boom of the immediate postwar period saw the
greater part of these disappear and the Dengie