Wildlife and Conservation Review of 2000
coastal marshes, apart from seven owls at Rainham. Perhaps we need to readjust our expectations of
winter birds in Essex, as on the other side of the balance, more than 20 Little Egrets were roosting
at a site in north-east Essex. No less remarkable was the reedbed roost of Pied Wagtails at Colchester
Hythe. Normally this peaks during November at around 200 birds, but this winter it continued to
grow until it reached around 700 birds at the end of January. Rainham had large numbers of Water
and Rock Pipits (up to 14 and 30 respectively), while there were exceptional flocks of more than
150 Siskins in Weald Park and 12,000 Golden Plover at Dagenham Chase. Wintering Avocets
continued to increase, with more than 500 on the Colne at Fingringhoe Wick, and 600 at East Tilbury
on the Thames. Elsewhere, a Hooded Crow over the Essex Filter Beds was a throwback to winters
past, and Bittern-watchers in the Lee Valley were able to scrutinise the up to 12 equally cryptic
roosting Long-eared Owls.
Grey Seals are regular visitors to the Essex coast in very small numbers. Pupping takes place in the
depth of winter, and this year for the first recorded time a new-born pup was seen accompanying its
mother in the Walton Backwaters. It will be interesting to see if this is a prelude to population
growth, as has occurred over the past couple of decades with the generally more southerly Common
Seal.
The mild weather brought out a small number of overwintering butterflies, which increased as the
sunny conditions extended into February, broken only by a light covering of snow on 16"'. This
month also saw early breeding records of Grey Heron, Robin, Blackbird and Mallard, and a few
very early arrivals of summer migrants. So too in the plant world - records from Writtle Agricultural
College showed crocuses in flower a week earlier than in 1999. Blackthorn burst into flower
before the end of February, around the mid-point of the recent emergence-date range of the end of
January to early April. Oddly this year, Blackthorn and its close relative Cherry-plum came into
flower more-or-less simultaneously; usually Cherry-plum is some two weeks in advance, providing
a useful separation characteristic.
During February, Short-eared Owls showed a welcome increase, with up to 12 at Langenhoe. Most
of January's Americans remained, with an (additional?) Ring-billed Gull at Abberton. At this site,
there were also five Smew, two Long-tailed Ducks, 30 White-fronted Geese, along with - less
respectably - three Black Swans and more than 200 Ruddy Ducks. A White-headed Duck at
Walthamstow Reservoir was presumably an escapee. Avocets at Tilbury continued to grow to around
900, a small group of eight Waxwings toured Colchester, and a Dartford Warbler graced the
Suaeda bushes at Colne Point, continuing the recent spate of records. Off the East Anglian coast in
general, skuas were much in evidence, but only a few were spotted from Essex - Bradwell had four
Pomarines and the Thames a scattering of Arctic Skuas.
Winter is of course a traditional time to get on with major habitat management work, without
running the risk of interfering with breeding birds. January saw the completion of very significant
remodelling of parts of Fingringhoe Wick by the Essex Wildlife Trust, and supported financially
by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Large areas of overscrubbed land and oversleep slopes around the
lake were brought back into an early successional stage with the deployment of heavy machinery,
and the next few years will surely demonstrate the benefits of such radical management. Similarly, in
the nearby Friday Woods, the Ministry of Defence was knocking the secondary woodland back into
shape, with its tractor-mounted 'whopper-chopper'. Again, the result looks drastic, and will lead to
temporary changes in for example Nightingale distribution. But the scrub was well overgrown and
losing its wildlife value, so the nett result is wildlife gain, sustaining the vital habitat mosaic.
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 18 (2001)
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