An estuary weekend is always three days long

Back to Friday the 16th and those wildfowlers. It had been a sure-fire (pun intended) certainty that the island shoots would be out for marking the end of the season. To be fair, spend enough time on the estuary and you'll soon suss wildfowlers are out most Fridays. Many of the smaller sites can only accommodate a certain amount of guns. Dates are allocated. They do not overshoot, so dates themselves are at a premium, and some they try to respect each other by not shooting the same day as their neighbour. It would be senseless to overindulge on the estuary.

When I think about the number of wildfowlers I've got to chat with these past five years, I've found many of the regulars to be the same as the fowlers of a hundred years ago; local lads, often artisans, often shooting for their own pot. The brickie, the chippie, the plasterer. The guys who can plan their work around the tides. Their weekends often start on Fridays when the tides are good.

Look at other activities on the estuary, and weekend preparations become apparent. Boat preparations at their moorings; the skipper getting everything right for his weekend crew. Club races? The temporary race buoys might be moored out in readiness the day before. River traffic can be up with extra craft arriving.

On the mudflats, bait digging can be high. The amateur, wanting to get a bit of bait for his weekend, will often make a dash on the Friday. The edge of Motney can be busy. It will have been high on the Thursday as well, the 'pro' diggers collecting a bit of bait to sell to the shops and their mates often want to have their wares ready for the Friday sales. they'll be back on the Friday low as well. They'll be the ones tresspassing on the RSPB reserve to get to the best diggings.

So, the two-day Saturday birder might never notice these changes. They certainly might not notice waders switching roosts, because many have done so the day before as disturbance levels rise. They see the peak at the weekend, with the boats, the PWCs (Personal Water Craft- the jetskis and the like), the canoeists, the hovercraft, the microlights, they all reach their peaks- as do numbers of public on the shoreline, all doing their 'thing'. Recreational pressure.

Mondays are up a bit as well but, thankfully, not yet as much as a Friday.

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A Friday, the last Friday of the shooting season, with a middle of the day fair height tide with a surge attached? That'll do. The waders will be up and about.

I chose Chetney. I gambled on a few more walkers on the public footpath. Lose some win some, walkers here always flush birds from the easily viewed pools alongside the seawall, but if I can find one to walk a quarter-mile behind i won't feel too guilty about walking the path myself. Bingo!

I also gambled on a bit of a POETS day finishing for some. ('Push' off early, tomorrow's Saturday). A local was out on private land. Double whammy. No problem with that, of course, but he was on Chetney Hill, and the waders will roost around the edge of the Shade and Chetney canal. Higher-pitched shouts? Pulled off the triple, the half-term meant had a noisy young family member out as well. Then the accumulator now paid out big time; their dogs were off the lead.

At this point I should mention I have never been in a betting shop. I've never bought a lottery ticket, never been to a Bingo hall. Boring so-and-so. Never been a gambler, more of an actuary, weighing up the risks and the premiums. What came next was the pay out of one of the closest aerial displays I've been privileged to watch in years.

Of course, for the birds this is burning up energy. They aren't snowflakes, they don't fade at the first flush, but the more they get pushed around, the further from peak condition they will be. The Medway remains a big site for birds, but one where reserves are few and most managed poorly. A grand sight, but a despairing one at the same time.

If you looked inland, the story was the same as well; Lapwings and Golden Plover up everywhere; some 'natural disturbance', some not-so-much. By the time I'd walked back up to the viewpoint a long-lens birder was out in the middle of the marsh on the footpath. They certainly got much better pics than I did; at least I got three or four more goes at counting the Goldies in flight. Again, absolutely nothing wrong, but there are days when these birds have to retreat further away from view. And as numbers of path users rise, so do the flights.

Some don't understand why I don't routinely promote commoner species. They're available on the reserves, geared for big visitor numbers. Footpaths aren't.

Here the biggest increase in path users has not been birders- too long a walk. It is joggers. Again, not a major problem- yet. But you do get your biggest counts on weekdays.The Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays that is. The three day weekend here is driven by the game shoot.

Just published: 'A guide to not birding the North Kent marshes'

Mid-winter, and the birds can be struggling in even the best weather.

A high tide middle of the day means little time when the mudflats are uncovered in daylight; even though waders can feed at night, their sight is impaired (so the likes of Plovers change from visual hunting to less successful blind probing) and blind probers are more spread, often away from optimal edge feeding (mass escape flights a lot harder, better to be in smaller groups).

That's not today. BBC weather has low tide 10:30, Birds are okay. Aren't they?

Some adjustments are needed. First, to the excellent NTSLF site for the surge forecast:

Looking at the 7th, a bit of a surge during the morning, but that peters out by the time the tide comes in. Shouldn't be a problem? A need to visualise that information on the tide details:

Suddenly, not as much feeding available. Firstly, the low tide level not quite as low- mid-estuary, some of the feeding areas reached by the waders that follow a tide out will not be uncovered. Birds that like to stay by a tideline edge do so because their prey much less active during uncovered periods, especially as the water drains out of the mud. They might even burrow deeper. So birds lose out on this.

Secondly, the lower flats out mid-estuary, those that cover by about the 2.5 metre mark, aren't available for as long as could be; the birds will be moving back in and packing the shoreline flats earlier. Overcrowding isn't good. Example, some prey can 'feel' movement above/around them (why Plovers watch from a distance, then dash in) and a few hundred clockwork calidrids dashing about early cause them to go deeper. Feeding conditions are worsened (and, remember, the menu is getting barer now as prey is depleted, plus the birds need more food to get through the poor weather).

Next, it's a Sunday. The great British public are out in numbers. More chances of bird scaring. The waders can't count on those later covering flats being available right up to covering.

Plus, the weather. A quick check of the inshore waters c/o the Beeb, because those winds on your onshore forecast are always down on the estuary actual.

Aww, that's not good. Strong winds really cause feeding problems for some species. A large number of the Redshank will hunker down in the cord grass rather than wobble about, losing body heat. And prey can sense it, can sense the mud drying quicker, down they go earlier.

Still at least it's not raining. Raindrops coming down on mud really mess it up for visual feeders.

So, I'm still typing this, in my jimmy-jams, hot cup of tea close-by. Because not worth borthering the birds much at the moment. I want them to feed. There are no sanctuaries on the estuary, people will be out causing disturbance from the open sections of the sea wall (many inadvertently I hasten to add), people will be out along closed sections carrying out whatever they have to. Me going to either, standing, staring, will only add to it and I can do that under better conditions on a less crowded weekday. Let 'em feed.

Of course, once the tide is in, still problems. High spring tides such as we've been having can cause the birds to have to use sub-optimal roosts. Seen tweets and postings this week where locals have been saying 'birds trying to roost on seawall, but disturbed by x'. More energy wasted. I try to pick my spots carefully on such days. Today is a moderate spring, without a surge over high tide though? Look at that wind speed. The state of the estuary waters, by my own terminology, will be 'flippin choppy'and there'll be a lot of waves breaking on the islands- many relatively safe roost sites won't be.

All in all, a very uncomfortable day for the waders (and the wildfowl) out there. So I'd be tailoring my behaviour accordingly to give them a little peace (birders are one of the main causes of wader disturbance, after all). Nope, my post-op recovery needs are a nice excuse to stay off the wall anyway. There's always tomorrow.