Subdivisions

The last post talked about Black-tailed Godwit sub-roosts. Time to strike while the iron is hot and add another element to the subject: satellite roosts.


Sub-roosts and satellite roosts- what's the difference?

A week or so ago the local Oystercatchers had been using their sub-roosts for longer, on the neap tides. They had not found themselves pushed off by higher waters and had managed to loaf quite well at some places that, this week, are just short-term pre-roost gatherings on high spring tides.

Bishop Ness (red circled) is one such spot.

The Google Earth image shows all of the Bishop complex at low tide, above South Yantlet Creek to the north of Nor/Friars. Bishop was once one body. Now the westernmost section is Darnet- Fort Darnet standing on Darnet Ness ('Ness' being a promontory). The large central section is Bishop Saltings (a major gullery) and finally, to the east, the rump of Bishop Ness.

As can be seen, not very much remains above water on a higher tide. And on the highest springs, Bishop Ness goes under so Oystercatchers from there, with a much larger number from Bishop Saltings, usually then choose to move north to the Kingsnorth seawall. Often when gathered on the wall, these Saltings birds and Ness birds still remain separate from each other. Check through them closely enough and you'll find you have mainly younger birds in the smaller group from Bishop Ness. This is a satellite roost.

The younger Oystercatchers are kept from the best roost sites. Experienced adults have earned the best spots. Bishop Ness is nowhere near as good a site as Bishop Saltings, so most of the young gather there.

Motney saltings had been used by the young Oystercatchers in spring and summer in the past, Again, not a prime site, going under on the highest tides (when birds switched to Friars saltings). Motney was used routinely in 2013, my first year back in North Kent. Sadly, the amount of human disturbance there increased in 2014 and, along with the Black-tailed Godwits, they gave up on using Motney that spring. The young Oystercatchers didn't bother to return in 2015, now preferring Friars and Bishop Ness. They did use Motney a few times in 2016, but they have given up on it as a preferred choice. One of the Medway satellite roost sites has been lost for now.

Put simply, an estuary can't rely on just one, or two, safe roost areas. It needs a choice of sites. A choice of main roosts, a choice of sub-roosts and for some species a choice of satellite roosts. Take away enough of any mix of these safe roosts and the birds will start to desert and decline, however good the feeding. Yes, it is possible in the worst case scenario they might try to aerial roost- stay in a holding flight pattern over their inundated safe spot for a half-hour, an hour during the highest point of the tide, but this is a real calorie burner and the birds aim for peak condition. Or waders could choose to go several miles to roost further down the estuary, or to another estuary. Would this affect condition? Oystercatchers may switch between the Thames and Medway for feeding/roosting for certain tides, but as yet they prefer not to do this for every tide.


Where to see the Oystercatcher roosts:

The following notes are made to help understand what might be going on- none are that close to shore, and Oystercatchers may rest up in numbers on any favoured flat, so it cannot be an exhaustive list of sub-roosts; hopefully knowing about them might allow birders to understand and enjoy the spectacle a little more. Breaking the southern shore into two;

a) The western basin, to the west of Ham Green-

1) RSPB Motney Hill saltings- now infrequently used as a satellite roost/ sub-roost.
2) Friars saltings- sometimes used as a satellite roost/ sub-roost.
3) Bishop saltings- often used as main roost, neap tides.
4) Bishop Ness- often used as a satellite roost on neap tides only, sometimes as a sub-roost.
5) Kingsnorth sea-wall- main roost on spring tides for southern shore birds. Also used in poor weather. The lack of disturbance here has come about because of the old Power Station behind the wall. The eventual site redevelopment may well change disturbance levels here.

b) The eastern basin, to the east of Ham Green-

6) Chetney Hill- a main roost; on springs birds may move a short distance up onto quiet sections of the adjacent private sea wall
7) Barksore- a back-up main roost, often first choice when Chetney Hill is disturbed (by poor weather or human disturbance). This might be on the seward side of the wall, or on the fields behind.
8) Greenborough- a satellite roost/ sub-roost.
9) Burntwick (note exact position cannot be viewed from the southern shore)- a main roost for Thames birds, more often chosen on night roosts than Deadman's.
10) Deadman's- a main roost, swollen by Thames birds especially on spring tides. Technically, the birds may often sub-roost on the flats immediately below the roost and walk up to the roost itself.O
11) Swale Ness- a satellite/ sub-roost.


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Ageing Oiks

Young Oystercatchers at this time of year are fairly easy to age; most guide books include illustrations of 'first summers'.The wing and tail feathers were not moulted after fledging and appear much worn and not as black as in older birds. Unlike adults, they retain the white collar through the summer and have a dark-tipped bill, paler eyes and much paler legs. They do not attain an adult plumage until their third summer. Second summer sees varying degrees of adult features coming through- brighter legs, traces of dark tips to the bills, all with enough variation to befuddle birds. When when we think they can't be told apart in their third summer, the birds themselves can do it- when it comes to choosing partners, the average age for first breeding is four.

For their first summer youngsters are often the furthest from home they will ever be. They then return a little closer each year after that which means (based on ringing evidence) collared youngsters we see here on the Medway during the coming weeks will (with luck) end up returning to nest back home in Norway. Older immatures here right now might be birds of Kent or Kentish birds (depending on which shore of the river they were born) waiting their chance. And some 'probable breeding pairs' you might find later in the spring dossing along the tideline will actually just be canoodling immatures- because, if really a nesting pair, one should really be sitting tight on their nest.

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The Motney forecast for spring '17? Not good- another cairn (after one there in 2015) has been built recently smack in the middle of the roost (see first photo) by some intrepid walkers/campers and will now, no doubt, lure a few more wanderers out onto the reserve saltings in the coming month. Still, those young Oiks have got other sites (for now).

Morning neaps. Morning 'wits.

The tides were right this morning; neap, covering an hour or so after dawn. Went to have a peek at the Black-tailed Godwits at Rainham Docks East. RDE is the old remnants of a cement factory quayside.

I have posted on Godwits at this particular site before (in relation to fog) but will now expand a little on how/when they congregate at RDE the most.

The site is within the Riverside Country Park, with a freshwater feed into Rainham Creek making RDE a popular loafing site with duck and, sometimes, with certain wader species, especially Black-wits (green). Footpaths (yellow) pass close to the two main roost areas, and while birds can put up with 'non-threatening people' passing by, they will take flight at those who take too close an interest in them (including birders).

Disturbance levels increase when the park is busy, as there are no restrictions on walking out along the two arms of RDE (orange).

So, the best chances of seeing waders using RDE as a roost are early morning tides. The Country Park car park here is open all hours, but many of the early visitors are dog walkers who prefer a stroll around the grassy field just south, or along the seawall westwards and back through the field. If a park visitor heads north, and takes the arms, or is simply noisy enough to be perceived a threat, the birds will be off.

Yup, today, the covering tide was right. Another reason for choosing neaps, the RDE roost sites go under on a spring tide. Sure enough, many of the 600+ Godwits feeding in Rainham Creek made the most of RDE. They followed the tide right in, gathered, roosted, snoozed. Northside, by the wreck. Southside, along the arm. For all of a half-hour.

So, what disturbed them today? One of those noisy dogwalkers? Nope. A keen amateur 'togger? Nah. Drone pilot? Not this time. Clueless birder with no fieldskills? Not me guv'nor. (Not today, anyway.)

A Sparrowhawk. There I was, all ready to hang the innocent citizens of Medway. A blooming big ol' female sprawk. Hunting in stealth mode behind the southern arm- duck flopped low into the water, waders flighted high, circling, unwilling to reassemble, then off to Motney Hill saltings, a much 'safer' roost on most tides.

RDE can be a roost. When high tide has happened an hour or so before dawn, you can go find birds there that have clearly sat the dark hours out safely there. But RDE, as well as being out of favour on certain tides, also changes use- from being a roost to a sub-roost; a gathering point, a pre-assembly before moving off to the choicest site for the high tide.

The question for me today was this- why not simply head off to that safest first choice roost straight away, rather than bother with a broken nap at a sub-roost? The Sparrowhawk gave me an idea. Here on the Medway, with a fair number of roosts and sub-roosts available, if you spent all of the roost time on the best roost site, every single tide, predators would have an easier time of it. Make them work for their lunch. (And more reading up for me in due course.)

I've always had the dream of a couple of signs at the start of the arms of RDE, asking people to consider not disturbing birds if present over the tide. I always wake up and realise those signs would end up in the mud after a day or so. Besides, the birds have do have those other sites they end up at.

But does having a choice of sites help to increase the appeal of the Medway to staging Black-tails? Would losing some, all sites along this southern shore place too much pressure on the birds? This had been another morning with more questions than answers.

The more we see, the more there is to see.

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(For anyone interested in 'proper' studies of Black-tails, you can do no better than visit 'Wadertales'. Go. Visit. Learn. Much more than you ever will here.)

Friars Nor Frys

I've been trying to get my money's worth from my Council Tax. I had the Local Archives elves pouring over old maps and documents in an attempt to get to the bottom of a niggling question:
What is the oldest recorded name for one particular piece of land out in the middle estuary- Frys Marsh, or Friars Saltings?

Sadly, the question beat the elves. So many of the anciente mappes of Medwaye watery bittes seem to consist of 'here there be dragons', and not very much else. And the latest OS maps didn't help, either.

Why does this really matter? Well, pure OCD on my part. To a historian, the original name might well be the best. But what about to the present-day landowner? They probably wouldn't be too happy if you keep getting it wrong- and as I get on well with the present owners, I use their choice- Friars. I'll come on to the geographical/ornithological importance for getting this right a little later in the post. First though, the name.

Three elements to consider here-

     (i) Is it Frys or Friars?

     (ii) Is it marsh or saltings?

     and (iii) is there a cure for my grammar pedantry regarding a lack of apostrophe in both names?

Blue- Nor Marsh. Yellow- Friars/Frys.
Orange, the public viewpoint at Horrid Hill

Let's take (ii) first, nice and general-


- Marsh or saltings?

A marsh is a piece of land that floods regularly, freshwater or saltwater, and something remains waterlogged for a considerable time. A salting is a British term for coastal land regularly inundated by saltwater. Here, the old maps do come good- the area was consistently marked as 'saltings'. Makes sense. Up to the floods of '53, the land adjacent to Friars/Frys, Nor Marsh ,was indeed a marsh, being an 'island' protected by a complete sea wall, full of creeks and fleets. This land next door to Nor, unprotected, inundated on highest spring tides, could well be called a marsh but was, and is, more precisely, saltings.

So, let's rephrase part (i) of the question- Frys Saltings or Friars Saltings?


- The case for Frys:

Just south of the Country Park, north of the railway line, were a series of old farms. A few remain as farms, more technically parts of larger farms, whilst others are remembered through the names of private houses and converted barns. One is still signposted nicely- Fry's Farm.

A local birder who had grown up in the area in the 1950s has told me in the past that he had always known the parcel of saltings as "Fry's", because the Fry family had been the tenant farmers whose cattle had been put out to pasture on Nor prior to the flood of '53. And somehow that name got passed on to RSPB staff when they took over the liaison for local WeBS counts in the '90s, and it stuck. If you check the the BTO WeBS pages, it is still in use today.

- The case for Friars:

Argument (a) The saltings belong to Kent Wildfowlers. As do the saltings just north of Nor, on the far side of South Yantlet Creek, Bishops. "Bishops and Friars"? Now could that be a throwback to the days when an awful lot of land locally, including much of the now long gone farmland, belonged to the Church? Fanciful? Perhaps. Tracing the history of land lost back to the estuary is a bit of a challenge.

But argument (b) is much more forceful- possession. nine-tenths of the law and all that. The organisation that owns it, manages it, does use a different name to RSPB and BTO, and has used that name since they formed over half a century ago, before the start of WeBS and the like. (That year was the same as when Nor Marsh was flooded then abandoned- 1953.) Their website records they purchased the freehold in 1985. Freehold implies legal documentation, so you'd think they'd be getting the name right.

For me, a no-brainer. If I called any private site I surveyed by a different name to that used by the landowner, I'd get some strong feedback. The answer has to be Friars Saltings.

And (iii)? Well, sad to say there's still no cure for my pedantry.

Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours

Neighbours. You have to try and get on with them. Friars adjoins Nor. Nor is owned by Medway Council and leased to the RSPB, whose website currently describes their Nor and Motney reserves as follows:

At first glance, all reads well, but once you appreciate 'the saltmarsh islands' is plural, taking in the mix of landowners on the estuary, and the mix of of birds rely on each landowner, you start to see the value of being more specific. Most land-based birders only know the Nor/Friars complex as 'Nor'. Figures in various reports will always read 'x roosting on Nor'. The problem is, quite often they weren't. They were roosting on Friars. A whole different set up, not a reserve, instead a routinely worked saltings.

Take an older image off Google Earth at high tide and you can clearly see how much more of Nor is innundated by the tide nowadays. Since the breach in '53, much of the land has eroded and now just parts of the sea wall and a few odd stretches stay above a spring tide. Friars is slightly higher, slightly drier, and more 'natural', so appeals to more of the roosting waders for many of the tides. The dry stone-covered stretches of the Nor seawall are used less often; sometimes preferred when shooters are in situ on Friars, but even then not always, as the wildfowlers tend to stick to one or two spots and the birds can always make for Bishop.

Specks roosting on a distant Friars, 01/16

Breeding? The majority of the gulls and terns that attempt on Nors/Friars complex are on the saltings. The Black-headed Gulls do get by on Nor on a few linear stretches of the seawall plus one raised area that just about survives the tides- but the larger colonies of 'Nor' are actually on the wildfowlers' land.

Of course, Nor can be better for some things; full of duck over the tide, but they are wary so, as with many spots around the estuary, only use Nor routinely after the end of the shooting season. Even then, many duck can tuck themselves away in Friars.

Neighbours have to get on. For me, getting the neighbours' name right is one of the first steps to having good working relationships. I cannot fathom why 'we' birders continue to ignore the landowners' name for this stretch of the estuary. Pain in the backside that I am, yes, I've already pointed this out to many observers. One such reason for continuing to do so is the breeding colonies.


Neighbourhood Watchers

The gulls are now back on Nor. And on Friars. Ready to face the threats of another breeding season. Everyone wants the birds to do well. Two summers ago, many of the gulls on the accessible stretches of Nor deserted, with rumours of robbery abounding in the local community. Further thievery was suspected last year further along the estuary.

Last year's message regarding egg thieves may well, sadly, need highlighting again. We all need to be vigilant. Any good neighbourhood watch only works when neighbours get on and look out for each other.

So, for the local birders; next time you record those birds from Horrid Hill, why not consider recording roosts/breeding colonies, etc, as either Nor, or Friars? It all helps the overall understanding of the way our estuary works. And we can report any potential egg thieves out among our colonies in just the same way- the more specific your observations, the better chance of action.

My hard(back) drive

Today is World Book Day. A good time to admit to one of the driving passions behind my estuary walks.

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Just over five years ago-

 I thought 'enough's enough' and quit full-time work. There is only so much time available. I had just turned the half century and was beginning to feel it. Never mind the image they sold us, of keeping our health and wealth well into old age, of enjoying retirement travelling. Health? I already had bits falling off. Wealth? Given up on that but had a plan for hand-to-mouth survival involving allotments, pushbikes and maybe perhaps a part-time Saturday job for some pocket money. Health and wealth could be covered.

As for travel, I had never really had a big drive to go 'world listing' The times I had been abroad I'd always found myself thinking I knew nothing about those new bird species I was looking at; sure, I had the field guide, but it never told you much, and you never got the time to get to really know the species. Ticks on a list didn't mean much. I began to think I'd be happier with local species close to home. Besides, I had one thing something on my small bucket list that I could combine to help keep me stay happy here.

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Go back another five years-

"1,437!"

"One thousand... four hundred... and thirty-seven... what?" I reply, slowly, sensing it might be a trap.

"1,437 bird books. You have 1,437 bird books in this house. Enough is enough."

My mind races with all sorts of half-plans on how to keep that number.  I imagine how I might be able to sneak extra into the house, under the radar. I panic over how to keep the loft off-limits so the journals wouldn't added to that total. But I never once admit to any problem ("My name is Kevin and I'm a bibliophile").

Besides, I had already compromised on this- the books were sorted, not by Dewey classification or similar so I could easily retrieve any title, but instead by dust jacket/spine colour/design. Only the nicest hardbacks could ever make the living room, all other hardbacks relegated to the spare bedrooms, Antiquarian titles in an antique cabinet in the back room. Paperbacks up on the landing. And Journals? Well, as said, I really didn't own any and, no, there was no need to ever look in the attic.

"And don't try to tell me you've read them all, cover to cover."

Well of course not! This was, for the main part, a reference library in progress. My dream, since, yes, being school librarian, was my very own reference library. That I had gone on to find birds after leaving school did mean the ornithology section was rather large, but this made the dream of combining my two loves. Watch the birds then read up on them.

You try selling that dream to a non-birder into minimalist furnishings. I won't. I'll just look at my feet and shuffle them awkwardly.


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Jump forward five years...

Moving back to be in walking distance of 'my' estuary once more might give me the chance to start living that dream. Forget work, there was mud to watch. And now I had the chance to use that reference library as I'd always hoped. Most days I could get out for some birding- perhaps, on good days, get out two or three times. And each time I return home, I could gather a dozen or so different texts off of the shelves to read up on what I had just seen. Surely this could keep me happy for a few years?


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And today...

...some books never seem to leave the small table by my comfy chair; 'Birds of the Western Palearctic' volumes three (waders) and one (wildfowl), the BTO's excellent 'Migration Atlas', Gillham and Homes' 'Birds of the North Kent Marshes', Goss-Custard's 'Coastal waders and wildfowl in winter' and Woods' 'Birds of Essex' (yes, I know I'm in Kent, but there is no better summary of estuary birds in the south-east).

I'm no scientist, it was all English Lit. and History back in the day. So the on-the-go bookpile is never all textbooks. There will always be a good narrative to slip into. (As I look away from the laptop, Bob Chestney stares back at me from the cover of his 'Island of Terns, Warden of Scolt Head'. And there might well be the latest issue of 'BB' pushed under the chair.

Add to that a hot cup of tea and a plate of biscuits, and all is right in life. My dream to really use my books is being lived out. I might have limited myself to a local life, but there is more than enough to be see here on the estuary and to then read up on. For a good few years now, and a good few more to come.

Of course, if asked, yes, I still own 1,437 bird books, no more. And absolutely no journals.

Enjoy your books everyone.

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A game for Ornitho-bibliophiles:
This photo was taken about six years ago. You will note a number of volumes of 'HBW' in view.
Since the photo was taken
(i) has the number of HBW volumes increased?
and (ii) Has that series gained any blue spines?

(Please note relatives of the blogger and employees of NHBS.com may NOT enter this competition).