Wallasea Island Wild Coast project

Notes from the Local Liaison Group meeting - 27 February 2013

2013-04-04T11:30:46Z

Hi there,

The Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project Local Liaison Group draws together members of key groups in the local community. The six-mionthly meetings are used to inform members of progress and to discuss/resolve any significant issues. The constitution of the group is dicated by our planning permission from Essex County Council.

We agreed at the last meeting that the notes should be available to a wider audeince, hence this blog with the output from the 27 February meeting attached.

Best wishes,

Chris

Chris Tyas - RSPB Wallasea Island Project Manager

Record numbers go wild on Wallasea

2012-09-25T13:32:51Z

Hot on the heels of our official VIP launch, our third annual Wild Coast Weekend drew record numbers of visitors from near and far. As Saturday dawned hot and sunny, three times the previous year's number of people explored the island on bike, bus or boot.

A choice of activities kept families busy, including the wildlife safari trail, creative crafts and close up viewing of lizards, caught on the island that day by our ecologists. Minibuses took the adventurous to the Far East to see the construction site and once they had worked up an appetite walking the seawall, locally-sourced hog roast and real ale went down a treat, or a trip to the W.I tea tent provided home made cake and refreshments. Our favourite musicians played all afternoon, providing the perfect excuse to laze about in the sunshine outside the marquees.
Unfortunately Sunday saw the contrasting arrival of Autumn, with strong winds and cloudy skies. But the RSPB crowds are a hardy bunch and hundreds more visitors turned up - many returning from the first day as they'd had such a good time! To see some pictures of the day check out our Flickr page
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rspb_wallasea_island_wild_coast_project/sets/

If you missed out this time, our Wallasea wanders guided walks are about to start a new season. So if you'd like to hear about what we are doing on Wallasea and have a look at the birds coming through details are available on our webpages at www.rspb.org.uk/wallasea

Wallasea Island Wild Coast Weekend 2012: Come and see what all the fuss is about.

2012-09-19T15:07:00Z

With the new Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, officially launching the construction of Wallasea Island yesterday, we are now inviting members of the public and the local community to come and celebrate. The Wild Coast Weekend takes place on the 22 and 23 September and is totally free!

For the first time, visitors will be able to see the large construction machines being used to shift the 4.5 million tonnes of soil from the Crossrail site in London to Wallasea Island.

Crossrail has constructed a new jetty and an excavated material handling facility at Wallasea Island. At its peak 10,000 tonnes of material will be unloaded from 4 ships per day.

The Wild Coast Weekend is the chance to really get a feel for the scale of the work happening here. It is such an exciting time to visit the Island and it’s amazing seeing people’s reactions to the work. There will be loads going on over the weekend, with activities, exhibits, food and craft stalls and local refreshments. There is also a nature trail to follow that will give you the chance to take in all the sights and sounds of the big landscape at Wallasea.

The Crossrail earth will be used to create 670 hectares of higher and lower ground to restore the wetland landscape of mudflats, saltmarsh and lagoons last seen 400 years ago. As a result of this, the Island is expected to be home to a returning abundance of wildlife including tens of thousands of wading birds, fish, ducks geese, terns and seals.

Admission to the Island on the weekend is totally free, with free parking and a free ferry from Burnham on Crouch with a bus from Essex Marina to the event. For more information about the Wild Coast Weekend, please contact us on 01621 862621.

McDonald's Big McClean up on Wallasea

2012-08-22T19:22:00Z

Wallasea is becoming known for its unusual partnerships and this week saw a new one develop. No golden arches have sprung up on the island, but thanks to our friends in Rochford Council, a team of young staff from McDonalds spent an afternoon on site.

The teams from four McDonalds' branches in Southend are usually better known for their burger sales, but this week came along on a litter pick very different from those they are used to. Following on from our successful Shoreline Scavenge last year, we invited them to come along and help us clear the shores of some of the flotsam and jetsam that washes up with every tide.

Old boats and lumps of wood are to be expected, but these scavenges can turn up all manner of unexpected waste, which we hope to recycle or reuse where possible.This year's 'treasure' included a fire extinguisher, a wooden bench and one person triumphantly returned with a bicycle wheel! Unicycle anyone?
Many thanks to the council staff who brought the truck along to take away that which could not be used on site and we look forward to working with you all again on another project soon. Maybe you'll bring the picnic next time?

Wallasea starts work for 2016

2012-08-13T08:45:00Z

In stark contrast to the mountain bike excitement at the Hadleigh Olympic venue , Wallasea was a calm haven in the summer sunshine this weekend. However, this time of year is always tinged with a little sadness for me, as the vast crop fields are harvested and the buzz of insects and chirp of the corn buntings is dispersed to the seawalls and further afield.

This year is different though, with the contractors now in full flow preparing for the arrival of the first ship of earth from Crossrail's London tunnels. I am often asked why we need all this material, and I thought this picture, showing huge dumper trucks with the seawall behind them, would illustrate it perfectly!

The island is on average 2 metres below sealevel, having eroded over the years of intensive farm activity, so in order to restore the old marshland the landscape must be built up in carefully planned, natural levels gently sloping up to the new seawall bunds which will eventually provide extensive foot and cycle path access to many areas of the island.
Crossrail's first ship will arrive on Monday August 20th, when the unloading facility - the pontoon which arrived at Easter and the 800 metre conveyor belt which has been under construction since last Autumn - will be tested and seen in action for the very first time.
For now, most of the work will be at the far eastern end of the island, well away from our car park and where most walkers venture, but you may follow the public footpath along the northern seawall and view this amazing partnership of engineering and conservation, cross over the structure on the foot bridge and continue to the north eastern corner to witness history in the making.

Duckling Days at Wallasea Island

2012-06-29T10:20:00Z

Some days you really need an aaahhh moment - and my thanks go to the Wallasea Birder for providing just that yesterday afternoon. This lovely picture of Pochard ducklings with their mum, happily smiling for the camera on the Wild Coast yesterday, are one of several broods enjoying the peace , tranquillity and sunshine in the borrow dyke which runs along the inside of the seawalls.

Another picture provided a talking point and a bit of a puzzler. A tufted duck with what looked like imposter Mallard ducklings in the Tufted brood!

Our intrepid researcher found the answer for us: to be so obviously the same age and evidently associated it is likely they were from eggs laid in the Tufted Duck nest and therefore all incubated together (so they hatch out at the same time - important when your youngsters are so independent from day one). Mallard broods previously spotted on the island were already well grown a week ago. It is not that unusual for more than one female Tufted Duck to use the same nest when you can get apparently huge broods of 14 to 19 or more, but we're not sure how common it is to have imposters from another species! The 8 true ducklings are a pretty standard brood size for Tufted Duck.
The ducklings are probably not more than a couple of days old, but all busy feeding themselves on little shrimp and insect larvae on the surface water with mum just riding shotgun. Dad meanwhile takes the easy option and leaves home once incubation has started to go off and start his moult. The female incubates for about 23 days and then shepherds the youngsters for 2 or 3 weeks before leaving them to go and moult herself. Incidentally, the Pochard similarly has about 8 young in a clutch, so our 6 is modest.
Sadly, for both ducks, only about half will make it to fledging post successful hatching - what with Marsh Harriers, Grey Herons, Stoats, Foxes etc as well as risk of bad weather when they can get chilled. Fortunately on our borrowdykes they don't have to worry about large Pike nor Mink!

Duckling Days on Wallasea

2012-06-29T08:38:33Z

Some days you really need an aaahhh moment - and my thanks go to the Wallasea Birder for providing just that yesterday afternoon. This lovely picture of pochard ducklings with their mum, happily smiling for the camera on the Wild Coast yesterday, are one of several broods enjoying the peace , tranquillity and sunshine in the borrow dyke which runs along the inside of the seawalls.

Another picture provided a talking point and a bit of a puzzler. A tufted duck with what looked like imposter Mallard ducklings in the Tufted brood!
Our intrepid researcher found the answer for us: to be so obviously the same age and evidently associated it is likely they were from eggs laid in the Tufted Duck nest and therefore all incubated together (so they hatch out at the same time - important when your youngsters are so independent from day one). Mallard broods previously spotted on the island were already well grown a week ago. It is not that unusual for more than one female Tufted Duck to use the same nest when you can get apparently huge broods of 14 to 19 or more, but we're not sure how common it is to have imposters from another species! The 8 true ducklings are a pretty standard brood size for Tufted Duck.
The ducklings are probably not more than a couple of days old, but all busy feeding themselves on little shrimp and insect larvae on the surface water with mum just riding shotgun. Dad meanwhile takes the easy option and leaves home once incubation has started to go off and start his moult. The female incubates for about 23 days and then shepherds the youngsters for 2 or 3 weeks before leaving them to go and moult herself. Incidentally, the Pochard similarly has about 8 young in a clutch, so our 6 is modest.
Sadly, for both ducks, only about half will make it to fledging post successful hatching - what with Marsh Harriers, Grey Herons, Stoats, Foxes etc as well as risk of bad weather when they can get chilled. Fortunately on our borrowdykes they don't have to worry about large Pike nor Mink!

Wallasea Island Feva

2012-06-18T15:38:38Z

This weekend , while other sailors watched the wind and waves from the comfort of the clubhouse, some intrepid youngsters revelled in the elements and competed in the Feva Open weekend event hosted by Burnham Sailing Club. The reason for this madness was clearly a love of sailing, but there was an added incentive this year - the shiny new RSPB Wallasea Island Cup, being awarded for the first of what we hope will be many years.

The RS Feva is a two person sailing dinghy, suitable to be sailed by two young sailors or by adult and child teams,or the RS Feva may also be sailed single-handed. Twenty youngsters from clubs near and far, raced each other in their ten tiny boats, over both saturday and sunday, finishing early on Sunday afternoon for a prizegiving and welcome feast. Brothers Chay and Stirling Taylor were the ones who carried the cup away this year, but everyone was a winner with the awards table groaning with goodies from various local sponsors.

The Burnham Sailing Club is a family oriented club which has an exceptionally large and active junior section . Children are encouraged to get afloat and enjoy the river under the watchful eyes of volunteer club members. Many thanks to the club members who all made two landlubbing members of the Wild Coast Project team very welcome and we look forward to seeing you all again soon and presenting the cup for many years to come. For pictures of the day check out our Flickr site on http://www.flickr.com/photos/rspb_wallasea_island_wild_coast_project/sets/

National Volunteers Week - Walvols weather it again!

2012-06-06T14:31:46Z

So how did you spend YOUR Jubilee weekend? While many people went on a serial barbecue spree or joined the royal festivities via the wonders of satellite television, my favourite team of volunteers were once again turning out in all weathers on behalf of the Wild Coast project.
In this national week that celebrates the work of volunteers across the country, our team did us proud. On Saturday, the damp start did not deter our creativity as we joined forces with our old friends The Art Factory , to create a new shelter for walkers to the far flung parts of our public path

Continuing our project's recycling theme, we used miles of remnant, coloured binding tape from a sports apparel manufacturer. Visitors to the Wild Woods Day event at Hockley Woods were encouraged to join in, adding this Jubilee colour-themed coating to create a rag rug effect on a boat-shaped structure. Everyone from tiny tots to grannies were pressed into action, tying on as many strips of cloth as they liked, some becoming quite addicted! Any preferring to spectate were able to peruse our displays or chat to the volunteers taking part.
Then on Sunday, when many would have been forgiven for staying in bed to avoid the cold, wet conditions, yet again the walvols turned out - this time for the second annual Wild Coast Paddle. Despite lower numbers than hoped, this event was illuminated by the enthusiasm of the kayak enthusiasts who turned out with gusto on such an unpromising morning.
This hardy bunch of paddlers, bolstered by bacon rolls and coffee provided by another cheery bunch of volunteers - this time from the Burnham Sailing Club - headed off into the mist and waves to circumnavigate Wallasea Island. Although the RNLI kindly accompanied them, there were no mishaps and they all arrived in great spirits and one piece for RSPB refreshment at the north eastern corner of the island. This no doubt welcome break, provided by our volunteers, allowed them to draw breath before the final hard push against the tide back to Burnham.

The walvols will now catch their breath until the next outings, but can regularly be found wandering the seawalls, collecting litter, chatting to our visitors - or checking out the quality of the ale in the Anchor. New members are always welcome and any new skills a welcome addition to the extensive range already being provided.

OTT about OTD ( that's Operation Turtle Dove to you and me)

2012-05-11T12:16:00Z

Each summer, walkers and residents round Canewdon village, just up the road from Wallasea Island, often hear the unmistakeable,gentle purring sound of Turtle doves. Some are lucky enough to see them in their back gardens! So you may be surprised to know that this very special summer visitor is a 'bird on the brink', of extinction.
So up stepped some of our local heroes for nature - the Essex Birdwatchers Society, ably steered by our very own Frank Vargas, Essex Farmland Bird Conservation Officer working from our offices on Wallasea Island. These TD champions have been working alongside the RSPB since last year, to find ways of supporting the main key elements of Operation Turtle Dove - with the 'Essex Farmland Bird Conservation Conference' in September, the restoration of habitat for Turtle doves, support of local farmers by providing expensive essential seed mix and recording the birds’ presence around Essex.
Operation Turtle Dove, launched this week by the RSPB, leading sustainable farming specialists Conservation Grade and Pensthorpe Conservation Trust in Norfolk, is a three-year project to reverse the decline of one of England’s best-loved farmland birds.
Turtle Doves are more often heard than seen, and their distinctive song has long been a characteristic sound of summer. From The Bible to the works of Chaucer and Shakespeare, the turtle dove is well known in literature and folklore as a symbol of love and devotion. But numbers have fallen dramatically in recent years and there are now just nine birds for every 100 there were in the 1970s. These birds are on the brink of extinction and many prefer to spend their summers in Essex.
The RSPB is hoping that people in Essex who are lucky enough to hear or see Turtle doves in their area will step up for nature and tell us where their local birds are, to help target the project’s research and advice to farmers and to establish any turtle dove zones around the country. Please report your turtle dove sightings at www.operationturtledove.org or come along to the EBwS conference at Stow Maries in September. - http://www.ebws.org.uk/ebs/default.asp

Pontoon Floats In

2012-05-02T12:38:00Z

At last! A window in the awful weather allowed the contractors to tug the first half of our unloading facility pontoon into place this morning. It was a bit of a foggy, 'soft' morning fo photos but it was great to see the dark shape coming up the River Crouch out of the mists.

Two 76 metre long pontoons will join to create a single jetty, at which ships will unload the essential ingredient for our new nature reserve. Each ship will carry up to 2.5 thousand tons of excavated earth from the Crossrail tunnels being dug, deep down under central London. Once firmly in place, this jetty will accommodate two ships at a time. The equipment on the jetty will include four unloading machines, two on each pontoon, with conveyors feeding hoppers which in turn feed an 800 metre central conveyor that carries the material across the marsh to shore. On the island side of the seawalls, a radial stacker arm will stockpile the clean excavated material in a carefully prepared part of the site before it is placed in carefully planned areas to recreate the new mudflat and saltmarsh levels.

So as you can guess, its quite a sight down there at the moment! Unfortunately the huge amount of rain has made the site pretty sticky, but the seawall is free draining so walkers may walk along to, and beyond, the crossing point on the seawall. From there you may look seaward viewing the long conveyor belt running down the berm and across the marsh to the pontoon , or landward where the conveyor continues down to the radial stacker. Of course, there is still a good mile or so to walk beyond that to get to the far end of the public footpath, which remains open throughout. For the armchair viewers, there is always the view from the webcam though. (http://www.carnyx.tv/CarnyxWild/WallaseaIsland.aspx.)

Hopefully, the sun is not too far away and it will soon entice visitors to go and see for themselves. Our Flickr site has photos from this morning and will be updated once the second half of the pontoon is also in place. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rspb_wallasea_island_wild_coast_project/sets/)

Wallasea project gets a rocket

2012-03-29T17:33:00Z

Some days you just have to get out in the sunshine - but not many have as good an excuse as we had today!! After the recent expert confirmation that what we had found on the marsh was actually the motor of a German V2 rocket from WWII, we had a race against time to retrieve it before the contractors cut off our access with the start of development of the construction site for cell 1.

Volunteers swiftly moved into position this morning, ably supervised by Ellen Heppell from the ECC Archaeology Field Team. We soon discovered that there was more of it under the marsh than above so plenty of spades made light work and eventually it was free of the sticky essex mud and our friends from HP Elderton skillfully lifted it over the seawall and transported it to a place of security.

This wonderful find will now require some careful conservation so that we may use it in future as part of our education and heritage display. WWII is just one era which we hope to bring to life for future audiences, as we develop our facilities and events and activities can be more creative.

For the full story check out our Flickr pages on http://www.flickr.com/photos/rspb_wallasea_island_wild_coast_project/sets/

Wallathon 2012

2012-03-22T11:15:47Z

St Patrick's Day ( March 17) turned out to be what the Irish refer to as a 'soft' day, but it didn't deter the entrants to our Wallathon 2012! Our invitation to walk the bounds of RSPB Wallasea went out in all the local papers and on BBC Radio Essex and the enthusiasm with which this was received locally was amazing.
The RSPB Walvol team turned out in force, and in great cheer, with a variety of green hats, shirts, trousers and boots to add a little fun to the day. Health and safety was added to by the sole member of the Wallasea Mountain Rescue Team! Thanks paul.:)

So as you might guess, we weren't downhearted by the dismal weather and neither were the participants. First up were a dozen cyclists, some having travelled by the newly launched ferry from Burnham-on-crouch. Following them were the runners, quite a few of which came from Rochford Council - great to see you guys!

And last but not least we had a surprising number of walkers - all dressed for the occassion in their wet weather gear - bringing the numbers of hardy people to 72! Had it been a day with weather the like of which we have had ever since the event we could have been inundated with energetic people wanting to walk the bounds of Wallasea - so let's hope we are able to run it again next year.

The people problem

2012-03-08T11:52:27Z

Imagine you have a huge house, which you feel safe and comfortable in and it has everything you need - a warm,comfortable bed, cupboards full of food, space for you to raise your family and in which to see them grow up to be strong and healthy. Then gradually this space is taken over by people. People who don't care that it's your home, don't seem to see you, disrupt your life, your feeding habits and whose dogs scare your children.
This is a problem that the RSPB wrestle with all the time. While we want to bring people closer to nature, share our passion for the wonderful wildlife spectacle in our countryside and encourage people to enjoy the great outdoors with us we also have a duty to care for and protect those unable to protect themselves and who were in those spaces long before we found them. Added to that many of those species, be it animal,insect or flower, are rare and endangered.
RSPB scientists have done quite a bit of survey work on exactly this sort of problem - and I was fortunate enough to be at a presentation about this subject earler this week. The audience learnt how a nightjar population suffered from predation of nests by crows - but only where dogs scared the mother bird off the nests along a track frequented by dog owners. Another island habitat for Chough was visited in huge numbers by holidaymakers during August. It was found that the fledglings and their parents moved to another area, not as plentiful in food during this invasion and as a consequence failed to thrive and became malnourished and unlikely to survive the winter. In another area several metres either side of a public footpath through scrub showed much less dense a population of wildlfe, which given the length of this track added up to a considerable area
This is a sobering thought to those of us who like our walks in the countryside and own a dog who walks at least 4 times the distance when off the lead! I guess the answer is to attempt to explain to our visitors that the shiny new sign with an image of a dog on a lead is not just there for 'other dog owners' or ornament. Between the months of March and September the nature we all love to see is busy in a fight for survival. Adders are coming out of hibernation and warming up on the seawall banks, many birds are building nests on the ground ( not all in trees!!) and wild flowers are attracting insects and eventually turning to seeds both of which are food for many things.
Loving Nature means taking care of it too - so that your kids and mine will be able to show the same things to their kids as we do to them. So sorry Fido, you're on the lead from now on!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

2012-02-24T09:03:00Z

Did you ever notice the inspiration that comes from a good walk? While tramping the field paths of Canewdon with the all-weather dog this morning, I was cogitating about the possible subjects to blog about this week. The sky was slowly turning from pale pink to blue as suddenly something caught my eye. A shaft of sunlight lit up an object, that was coloured gold with tints of pink and blue, perched in the top of the hedgerow . Now even this bad birdwatcher knows the corn buntings currently jangling from every available perch are not the most colourful, so it was definitely not a red-list species that I'd spied!
Alas, it turned out to be another one of our old foes, a shiny balloon - escaped from the clutches of some Disney fan, on a day trip to Southend perhaps? Now I blogged about these before, probably this time last year, so I'll not subject you to another of those rants. But it turned my head to the subject of resources, and the old reduce, re-use, recycle message that has been around since the heady days of Anita Roddick refilling our Body Shop bottles with shampoo and body lotion.
The recycle message is one that permeates the Wild Coast Project at all levels. It helps that we live in Rochford District Council, which is the best in the UK for recycling. The most obvious example of our belief in this ethos is in our beneficial re-use of the material arising from the Crossrail tunnelling under London. This clay, a by-product of Europe's largest engineering project, will allow us to restore the marshland landscape to its former medieval glory. But we employ this recycling mode in other areas of our work too.
Just last summer , we teamed our volunteers up with the Art Factory from Benfleet to create our 'people perches' from flotsam and jetsam washed up from the river tides along the coastline of Wallasea Island. These are now being put to good use by weary walkers along the seawall path - and no doubt more than a few jangling buntings and other perchers!
Most recently, our fledgling Community Learning team have been helping young library visitors to save wildlife by the careful recycling of household items that often cause great harm and suffering to creatures in our countryside. Although to bystanders, it may have looked like a cross between a christmas pantomime and the unpacking of a shopping bag, the youngsters and their families entered into the spirit of this message wholeheartedly and will think twice before dropping litter again, I'm sure.
Looking to the future, I hope that we will be able to develop our facilities with more than an eye to the environmental impact of buildings and equipment used. If any of you readers see any really good, green ideas on your travels that you think might suit the Wild Coast please drop me a line.

The picture below is of 'one that got away' - a people perch which lives outside my office, with assorted other articles retrieved from the island edges!