Nothing to see here, clear off, aint'cha got no homes to go to?

So 'my' chimney bit the dust yesterday. I'll admit it now; I went.

I avoided the crowds by going to the hillside at Funton. My first choice spot would have been Queenborough, but I like to steer clear people wherever/whenever I can. That stretch of the Swale was visible through the 'scope, and the size of the throng there would definitely have put me right off. Even the remote Chetney footpath was the busiest I'd ever seen it, and I later found out the masses were spread the length of the southern shore- from photos on twitter the even the saltings of the RSPB reserve at Motney were lined by the public as well.

But here, up on the hill, it was just me and the Yellow Wagtails. (And the farmer, but he had the decency to park his four by four some distance from me, we must have met at some point I guess.)


As I watched that crowd while counting down the minutes I took the liberty of recalling the words of Emma Lazarus, still to be found on a famous statue in New York harbour:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: 

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

It struck me this was probably the biggest mass out on 'my' estuary wall for many a year. Come to see the light snuffed out. The demolition was set for low tide, so low potential for any obvious crowd disturbance impact on feeding waders. Now had this been done on purpose I wondered? Perhaps I should have risked those crowds, to see if any waders dared to hang about on those flats off of Queenborough Point?

Local social media groups will know I've referred in the past to a Medway Council commissioned study from a few years back into bird disturbance in North Kent by people (spoiler alert, c/o table 3.19- us birders really don't fare that well in it) and it could have been interesting to monitor any reactions to large crowds.

Of course, I only sussed all of this at 'boom(!) minus eleven', way, way too late to do anything about it(!). Why I'm just one of the masses rather than a mover and shaker I guess? (Ah well, I suppose there's always Kingsnorth chimney, due to come down in 2017.)

Of course, to rub it in, BOU later the same day went and tweeted a link to a paper suggesting certain wintering wader species can just about put up with up to a whopping 162 separate human-related disturbances a day(!) but only on extremely large estuaries such as the Wash. It adds the caveat (thankfully!) that disturbance will always cause problems for waders, and then talks of 'buffer zones' and 'set-back distances'.

What can 'my' birds here take?

It brought me back to the ongoing planning for Coast Path access around the Medway estuary. Whilst having to avoid damaging SSSIs and SPAs (the latter of course being a European directive), people have to be given more access.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore..."

I'm clearly not getting that poem out my head any time soon. No matter what prejudices I have personally about it, footfall on 'my' estuary will be getting busier soon. Of course it goes without saying I'll be one of the first out taking advantage of any new stretch of public access. No doubt adding a few more disturbance events to those daily totals, no matter how hard I try. I'll be part of the pressure.

I really, really, don't envy the jobs of those trying to get the balance right.

Reflections

I'm torn. My favourite man-made landmark on the estuary gets blown to kingdom come in the morning, and I really haven't made up my mind whether to watch the fall of this old friend or not. You see, not only do (did) I look at it every day, I have been lucky enough to look down from the top of it a couple of times.

The external safety lights needed routine inspection, and the sparkies had passed comment on the number of dead birds behind the fittings to the Environmental Initiatives Officer. Having passed the medical to say fit enough for the stairs, I was allowed to accompany them on their trips. The two poor quality snaps reproduced below are 'x-rated' record shots of, first, the number of corpses that could be recovered on one six-monthly inspection and, second, the chimney nesting platform so thoughtfully provided by the owners but being used, rather ungratefully, as a larder, by the birds responsible- Peregrines.

Contrary to many birders' beliefs, the Peregrines never actually nested on the chimney- that was some distance elsewhere, but the chimney made for a great hunting perch, towering some 802 feet over a dozen "football stadium floodlights" which lit up the entire site all night long, making passing birds easy targets. The peregrines could be busy at night, often to be heard on the wing calling, by the small team of bird ringers arriving to set nets pre-dawn.

When their feeding was good, the breast meat might be all that was taken or, sometimes, just the brain. The adults would also bring their young to the chimney to teach hunting skills by having them fly out to snatch a deliberately dropped kill. So, while the older corpses were a matted mess to try to identify, any fresher kills were much easier. Waders featured highly; Woodcock, Snipe, Jack Snipe, Lapwing, Golden Plover, Knot, Dunlin... Water Rail and Little Grebe also featured, land birds included Skylark and Quail, Little Tern was on the menu, and, much to the annoyance of some, even a rarity, a male Little Bittern (not much chance of that plumage sneaking past under the floodlights).

40 plus species noted on my visits if I recall correctly- though my notes are long gone, and the ringing station logbook is probably somewhere in storage gathering dust. The records were copied in to the county ornithological society at the time, though full details never made print, as station security was on 'high alert' due to terrorist threats. Part of the visiting arrangements were that the ringing team had to avoid publicity and not attract 'extra public' to the fenceline (though news of the Little Bittern did go out some time after the event to provide a story at the time of the first 'No Aiport at Cliffe' Campaign- no birder really wants to 'tick' rehab birds, yet alone one way beyond any veterinary help).

Great memories. Certainly cured me of my fear of heights. What the heck, the chimney is on north side of the estuary and I do only bird the south side nowadays- I will go and watch it fall. Maybe.

The view to Allhallows

Grain village

Smithfield Marsh

2002, 244 metres up

2016, one metre down