News and Sightings from Blue House Farm
Winter Weather
Friday 10th February
Winter returneth. A week of biting north-easterlies and severe overnight frosts prepared the way for the five inches of snow that fell during the early hours of 5th, a white veil that has thawed barely at all during the past four days. Oh what it is to be young – sliding along the ice-caked pavements as a kid or striding confidently across compacted slippery snow when a youngster. Now I totter along like the cautious old man I have become, viewing each icy patch with suspicion. I don’t bounce like I used to and it takes me a lot longer to get upright again. And the language! Fit to shame a fourteen year old!
You see a lot of things differently when you are young. Or at least I did when a boy in the 1950s and early 1960s, an age that was less addicted to cynicism than the current one. Captain Scott – or more particularly Edward Wilson and Birdie Bowers – were my heroes in those days. So too the likes of George Waterson, Kenneth Williamson, James Fisher and Richard Meintzhagen, whose epic tales of battling through mountainous seas in a small boat, the Good Shepherd, to reach Fair Isle from Shetland mainland could not help but fire the imagination of a small boy. Once there they lived a frugal, hand to mouth existence as they struggled to set up the first Fair Isle Bird Observatory. And, oh, the birds they saw – Lanceolated Warbler, Pechora Pipit, Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler and Yellow-breasted Bunting among them – species beyond the ken but not beyond the dreaming about of a young birdwatcher!
I was forty by the time there was an opportunity to visit the isle. My romantic ideals had not entirely faded and I insisted to my friends that the outward journey must be made on the Good Shepherd, a boat they hadn’t even heard of. It was not the original; I knew that, but a modern boat, although that seemed a decidedly relative term when I caught sight of it – a tiny rusting tub with a tin shack on deck to serve as a cabin. I looked at the boat, I looked at the sea, and then I looked towards the airport! That a spirit of heroism is still to be found in the modern age was demonstrated, though, by one of my friends, who gave me the last of his ‘Kwells’. I do not remember much about the subsequent trip apart that I spent it on deck with my eyes glued to the horizon, moving them neither up nor down, left or right; changing position only to ease upwind of my companions as they began to heave up over the rail. When we eventually arrived at Fair Isle one friend, who is particularly outspoken, turned – and as he staggered on to dry land - grumbled to the skipper, “that is the worst ruddy boat I have ever been on”! The skipper was aggrieved and growled back in a deep Shetland accent “`tis not the boat laddie, `tis the sea”! Quite so. But the boat didn’t help. Still, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
Not so another of the exciting spectacles that gripped my imagination as a boy. That was centred on Bardsey Island lighthouse off the coast of North Wales. Not the light itself but its fame (or notoriety) for attracting migrating birds, especially on still misty nights in late autumn. The accounts of people who had seen the spectacle enthralled me; their description of tens of thousands of birds swirling in and out of the beams, either crashing against the glass or being drawn back time and time again to flutter helplessly in the light’s glare until, exhausted, they tumbled lifeless to the ground. Accounts of the aftermath – of hundreds of dead birds littering the grass beneath the lighthouse the next morning - did not seem to bother me; I longed to be there on that lonely island in the middle of the Irish Sea and to witness migrating birds whirling through the beams of light in the midst of the surrounding darkness. Again, I was an adult by the time it happened. As I stood below the lighthouse, gazing upwards, a young Manx Shearwater, barely out of the nest, flew headlong into the light. It tumbled earthwards, crashed into the chimney pot of an outhouse, catapulted head over heels down the slope of the roof, hit and bounced out of the gutter, and landed with a thump on the concrete path, almost at my feet. It was, of course, a horrible experience, not a romantic one. The attraction that night involved just a few hundred birds, not thousands, but despite the gantry lights that had recently been put in place to try and attract birds down to the ground, there were a number of casualties, a dozen or more tiny corpses being laid out on the ringing hut bench the next morning, preparatory to being sent to museums. Remarkably, the young Manx Shearwater had survived, probably saved by the layers of blubber that it had yet to shed, and I had the pleasure of launching it on the wind and watch it fly off to the sea, an altogether more rewarding experience.
This brings us back to the current spell of wintry weather. As a youngster winter was for some years my favourite season. The long hard winters of those days, when snow cover and freezing overnight temperatures persisted for weeks, not days, could be an exciting time, especially if the Dutch polders froze and birds were forced from their normal haunts to seek shelter along our shores. The fact that many of them were slowly starving to death did not come into it. If they were rare they were exciting. Indeed many did die, including our own wintering birds, and I well remember walking along the beach on Essex Wildlife Trust’s Bradwell Cockle Spit Reserve counting the dead Shelduck, Redshank, Curlew and other birds along the shoreline. The slaughter was often exacerbated by large numbers of oiled birds, ships being in the habit of washing out their oil tanks in inshore waters. One year I found over thirty Red-throated Divers and a dozen Guillemots dead on the beach at Bradwell and can still remember, with pain, the sight of a badly oiled Common Scoter coughing up the lining of its stomach on the floor of the Bird Observatory.
Mercifully, the dumping of oil in inshore waters has now been banned and oiled birds are a rare sight along our coast most winters. The suffering caused by severe weather still remains, though, and as you get older that is increasingly what you notice, not the so-called spectacle, which is as it should be. Even during the short duration of the current cold spell it is easy to see a change in birds’ behaviour on the reserve as they battle to conserve energy. Scan the sky and there are few birds flying apart from Wood Pigeons commuting between oilseed rape fields; even the normally acrobatic flocks of Rooks and Jackdaws, which delight in tumbling on the breeze, have curtailed their antics while the flocks of tits and other small birds working their way along the hedgerows are strangely mute. The Dunlin flocks have trebled in size and been joined by groups of Knot, refugees from the exposed shores of the Dengie coast. All are remarkably tame, their normal wariness inhibited by the cold, so reluctant are they to fly. If they are not exactly walking at your feet, like the Turnstones on Southend Pier, they feed happily (if feverishly) within a few yards of them. It takes only a few days of very cold temperatures to numb muscles and slow reactions, one afternoon a Dunlin paying the price for a few seconds delay in the talons of a marauding Sparrowhawk.
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It has not been the best of winters on the reserve; low water levels, which are only now beginning to return to normal, inhibiting the number of wildfowl using the flooded areas prior to Christmas while at the present time the fleets are frozen and the fields covered in snow, denying them access. Small birds struggle to find feeding areas, mostly bare patches on fields swept free of snow by the wind, or sheltered spots on saltings and seawall. Nearly 200 Skylarks were present on or in the vicinity of the reserve this week, grubbing a living in such areas. Also, Sprat shoals seem to have worked their way upriver from the coast, bringing with them an increase in Cormorants and Great Crested Grebes plus, as a bonus, both a Black-necked Grebe and Great Northern Diver. The latter was concentrating on crabs, not fish, rending each of the wretched gastropods legless, literally, by nipping off each one before swallowing what was left! Roll on the spring.
Graham Smith, Volunteer - Blue House Farm
Living Landscapes
Monday 30th January
Humans are naturally territorial; not only in terms of nationhood but in other aspects of their lives as well. Even conservationists are apt to talk in terms of this reserve or that reserve as if they had rigid boundaries, not only in law but in nature as well. They see it as their territory and get pleasure from finding a new or unusual species as they feel that it brings kudos to ‘their’ reserve; a weakness to which, at times, I too am susceptible! Wildlife, of course, does not see land in that way but in terms of habitat. If the habitat is right it will set up territory on part of it in order to raise young and occasionally, if their livelihood depends on it (as in some pack animals), continue to defend that territory throughout the year. Many animals, though, become far more wide ranging outside the breeding season in search of the optimum habitat for their survival. This is particularly true of birds. At certain states of the tide large flocks of Wigeon, Teal and Pintail can be seen flying south and west from the River Roach: some stop off on Bridgemarsh Island, to the east of the reserve; some at Stow Marsh on the western boundary, while others continue along the River Crouch to Marsh Farm at South Woodham. If we are lucky a few of the flocks also find Blue House Farm to their liking! Doubtless they all have their reasons for making these individual choices. With Wigeon and Brent Geese it is the quality of the grass. To most of us grass is grass; it can be tall or short, lush or drought affected, but ducks and geese seem to have a more subtle appreciation of its nutritional qualities and numbers on the reserve fluctuate accordingly. There are records of colour-ringed Brent being recorded at Blue House Farm one week, Leigh the next, and Mersea the week after as they seek out the best areas in which to feed. Waders such as Oystercatcher breed on the reserve but move to the estuaries to moult in the autumn, returning in winter, while others, such as the Knot, normally prefer to feed on the vast mudflats of the Dengie flats but will readily move upriver to Blue House Farm and its surrounds when bitter weather takes old along that exposed coastline.
It is not only birds that can be wide ranging in search of suitable habitat; a surprising number of resident moths wander considerable distances from their usual haunts. At Blue House Farm there is relatively little tree or shrub cover but we regularly catch species such as Privet, Poplar and Pine Hawk Moths, Willow Beauty and The Sallow, whose nearest food plants are in Fambridge village or even further afield, up to a mile away in some instances. The Festoon, which we caught in 2008, is an oak feeder but of very local distribution in Essex. It is likely that this individual either wandered from a known locality such as Hockley Woods, south of the river, or from an unknown one, possibly Fambridge Hall Wood, at the entrance to the village. Many butterflies seem less adept at searching out new areas, perhaps because they have such specialised requirements even within seemingly suitable habitat, but one that has colonised Blue House Farm in recent years is the Marbled White. The most likely source is South Woodham, where they have been present for some years, from whence they have ventured forth to reach Blue House Farm, Althorne and Burnham Marina in the past 3-4 years. They have probably been able to do this because there is suitable habitat, in the form of fine grasses, along the seawalls that connect each of these areas.
Nothing better illustrates the importance of the Wildlife Trusts’ Living Landscape initiative. In an intensively farmed landscape like that in Essex it is vital that pockets of good habitat, whether it be woodland, wetland, grassland or whatever (so many of which occur on nature reserves) do not become isolated from each other. In the wider landscape there are a variety of sites – ponds, hedgerows, churchyards, waste ground, uncultivated corners of fields, roadside verges, patches of scrub, railway embankments and many others – that seem of little importance to wildlife in themselves but when well managed can form a link in a chain that provides a corridor for wildlife stretching across many miles of countryside that may otherwise be hostile to them. Such sites in the vicinity of Blue House Farm include Fambridge Marina, where a relatively small lagoon has become – due to good management – an excellent breeding habitat for wildfowl and waders; Fambridge Churchyard; Fambridge Hall Wood, where a small colony of Grey Herons has recently been joined by a larger number of Little Egrets; Stamford Farm’s grazing marsh, east of the reserve; butterfly rich grass margins and game cover strips on arable land alongside Althorne Boatyard; waste ground at Althorne Railway Station, where Wild Clary grows; the newly planted Bass Wood at Althorne , a regular haunt lof Adders; Althorne Cliff, which supports flourishing populations of both Yellow-wort and Small-flowered Buttercup; Creeksea village in its entirety, perhaps a remnant of a one-time coastal heath, and the Country Park encompassing Burnham Marina. All make an important contribution to the richness of the area’s ecology.
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The creeks that crisscross Round Marsh, the main wader breeding area on Blue House Farm, are at last beginning to overflow their banks and flood low lying areas of the surrounding field. Much of the reserve remains unusually dry though and although a few of the old ridge and furrow plough-lines on the Flat Fields (now pasture) are beginning to fill with water it is still possible to walk between the hides dry-shod rather than fence hopping or splashing through puddles, as is normally the case at this time of year. As a consequence there are relatively few birds feeding on the fields at present apart from small flocks of Rooks, Starlings and Curlews and the fleets, which have taken so long to fill to capacity, have yet to attract the large flocks of wildfowl which normally frequent them at this time of year. However, Wigeon numbers are starting to build up again on Round Marsh and the fleet overlooked by the BWA hide (the one nearest the seawall) is, on occasion, attracting good numbers of Mallard, Teal, Wigeon, Shoveler, Pintail, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Coot and other wildfowl. Less usual species during the past week have included a Short-eared Owl and a Red-necked Grebe, the latter in Bridgemarsh Creek, although (re: the first part of this article) what is almost certainly the same bird has also been seen in Burnham Marina and Fambridge Boatyard!
Graham Smith, Volunteer - Blue House Farm
Sunday 15th January 2012
This week’s work party was at Essex Wildlife Trusts Stow Maries Halt nature reserve, around two miles from Blue House Farm. It is situated on – and once formed part of - the former Maldon to Woodham Ferrers railway line, which was built by the Great Eastern Railway Company in 1889 with the intention of creating a link between Maldon, the Crouch Valley line, and from there the Southend to London line, which had opened the same year. It was never very successful, most people preferring to commute to London via the Maldon to Witham railway, and was closed to passenger traffic during the Second World War. It continued to run freight until the railways were nationalised in 1953 when it closed for good. There were stops at Barons Lane Halt (near Purleigh), Cold Norton, and where the reserve now stands, although the last named did not open until 1928 and closed in 1939. It seems astonishing that such a line could ever been contemplated as a commercial proposition but the area between Maldon and Woodham is probably less densely populated now than it was a hundred years ago, an era when large numbers of farmworkers were needed to till the land.
The only indication that there was once a railway line here is the old bridge on the edge of the reserve, the walls of which are adorned with four species of fern – Wall Rue, Hart’s Tongue, Black and Maidenhair Spleenworts. Old brickwork of this kind is the principal habitat of all four species in Essex and all but the last also occur at Blue House Farm, one of the railway bridges there sporting over 200 tufts of Wall Rue. Victorian and Edwardian engineers used a lime based mortar when constructing bridges and its high pH is admirably suited to the needs of these ferns. Unfortunately, a more acidic concrete based mortar is used in modern repointing work and this has led to their disappearance from many sites. I feared that would be the case when such work was recently carried out on one of the other bridges on the farm but happily the workmen seem to have only filled the gaps where mortar was missing, leaving many of the ferns untouched. In the past, medieval herbalists believed that a concoction of spleenwort was a cure for maladies of the spleen, a theory based on no stronger a premise that the sori (the reproductive organs) on the back of the leaf were shaped like one!
Our work today consisted of scrub clearance as the meadow which developed where the platform once stood supports a rich flora, especially species that like light or sandy soils, such as Wild Parsnip, Perforate and Hairy St John’s Wort, Wild Carrot, Lady’s Bedstraw and Hairy Tare. There are also a few damper patches of grassland, where the likes of Square-stemmed St John’s Wort and Common Fleabane flourish. These are particularly important as they attract snails and snails are the food of choice of Glow-worm larvae, one of the reserve’s specialities. Tim Lawrence, Blue House Farms assistant warden, organises a ‘Glow-worm Walk’ here on a couple of occasions each summer and these are invariably well attended, appealing to people who would never dream of venturing into the countryside after dark under normal circumstances.
The last work party before Christmas is always a festive affair but our celebrations were delayed this season by bad weather and were held today instead. The Blue House Farm volunteers like to do things in style and the menu the previous year had included Maldon Clams cooked in red wine served on a dish of Marsh Samphire! There was nothing quite so grand this time around but the ten diners had a choice of three fillings – stilton, cheddar and coleslaw - to go with the potatoes baked in tinfoil in the ashes of the fire, while dessert included mince pies, rice crackers, spicy bread sticks, a range of chocolate biscuits, and marsh mallows; all washed down with a glass (or three) of mulled wine and a tot of Tim’s homemade plum whisky. That medieval spleenwort brew could have come in handy after such a feast but we chose to work off the effects of our overeating instead, although it has to be admitted that we were all a little less energetic during the afternoon session than in the morning. It’s back to healthy eating tomorrow!
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This week finally saw the Wind Pump back in action, three months later than would normally be the case. Recent rain has at last raised water levels in the feeder ditches to the required level and pumping on to Round Marsh (the main wader breeding area on the farm) can now begin. It will probably take five or six weeks before the marsh is in peak condition – assuming, that is, it continues to rain – which will only be just in time as male Lapwings begin to stake out their breeding territories by the end of February. The wind pump may be a modern take on very old technology but setting it in motion is not as easy as pressing a button. Instead, Nick Robson, warden at Blue House Farm has to scale the structure using a ladder and then a clip-on harness. When he reaches the top he needs to oil or grease all the working parts before threading a rope through a ring on the end of a chain and retreating back down the structure. Half way to the ground he stops and yanks on the chain (a bit like flushing the loo) and the sails finally creak into action. A Eseex Wildlife Trust warden needs to be versatile!
On the bird front, our wintering wildfowl have been fickle, crowding in front of the hides one day, deserting the fleets completely the next. Raptors have been putting on a more consistent show with up to six Buzzards soaring over the ridge and regular sightings of 2-3 Marsh Harriers, a female Hen Harrier, Sparrowhawk and Merlin while a pair of courting Peregrines have been unsettling all and sundry with their antics, the male demonstrating his prowess by making spectacular stoops at real and imaginary prey alike. Other highlights have included a Black-necked Grebe in Bridgemarsh Creek and a very tame Lapland Bunting on the seawall just outside the reserve boundary.
Graham Smith, Volunteer - Blue House Farm
Saturday 31st December 2011
Two thousand Lapwing rose as one from Round Marsh and departed for the 
surrounding fields. An adult female Peregrine appeared. A single Lapwing (the only one remaining) took flight and was immediately attacked by the falcon. It dodged a dozen or more short stoops by the Peregrine, swerving to left or right an instant before impact, the two birds weaving an erratic pattern across the sky. A second Peregrine arrived on the scene, this time an adult male. He and his mate attacked the Lapwing in tandem; an unfair contest. He won the prize but the weight of the Lapwing dragged him down, predator and prey spiraling slowly earthwards. As they hit the ground he lost his grip and the Lapwing bounced free and took flight. The female Peregrine resumed the assault. Her would-be dinner crash landed in the deep water channel that crosses the marsh, then dived. The falcon hovered above the water, lunging at the Lapwing each time it was forced back to the surface to breathe. Three, four, five, six times she snatched at its head but on each occasion the Lapwing eluded her and re-dived. Then she gave up and retreated to a fence post to preen. The Lapwing continued 'downstream', still repeatedly diving, emerging from the water after fifty yards or so and seeking sanctuary among the rushes. Initially I thought that the Lapwing must be poorly (or dimwitted) to remain on the marsh when all its companions had departed but, ill or not, its performance demonstrated an extraordinary will to survive and I saluted it.
A friend once told me of a similar incident that took place while he was sailing his dinghy in the Blackwater. On this occasion the assailant was again a Peregrine, its intended victim another wader, a Turnstone. The latter was obviously physically spent and on the point of being killed when it saw his boat and changed direction towards it. It arrived just ahead of the Peregrine and dived into the water, resurfacing beneath the prow, where it hid, treading water. Frustrated, the falcon circled low overhead, hoping the Turnstone would panic and resume flight, but after a few minutes gave up and flew off. Shortly afterwards the Turnstone emerged from its hiding place and headed off in the opposite direction.
On another occasion, friends watched a Redshank being pursued by two Peregrines, a Merlin and a Marsh Harrier at Mayland. Remarkably, the Redshank eluded all four of them, again by diving into the water, re-emerging after a few yards, flying a short distance and then repeating the procedure. Even so, it is unlikely that it would have survived had not the superabundance of raptors pursuing it decided to bicker among themselves, giving it time to make for the cover of the saltings.
Waders have evolved to wade, not to dive underwater (although most can swim tolerably well when feeding in the shallows) but it would appear that new tricks can soon be learned when it comes to the survival of the fittest!
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This incident actually occurred last December, not this, but a similar confrontation took place on the reserve this week, on this occasion between a Marsh Harrier and a Teal. Part of a harrier’s hunting technique involves patiently working the reed-beds and fleets, often turning back on itself to cover the same ground time and time again, probing for weakness in any potential prey it flushes. This time it found an injured Teal, perhaps ‘winged’ by the wildfowlers on Bridgemarsh Island but at any rate unable to fly. The latter, realizing the danger it was in, dived under water while the harrier hovered clumsily above it, legs dangling, attempting to pounce each time it resurfaced. Teal are dabbling ducks, designed to dabble not to dive; also the fleet was only partially flooded and still very shallow. It kept bobbing back to the surface like a rubber duck in a bath (and here I use a distant recollection, of course)! Each time it came to the surface, though, it paddled and splashed across the surface, confusing the harrier, which seemed reluctant to get its feet wet, and eventually sought sanctuary among a flock of Mallard. After a few more ineffectual lunges the harrier gave up, having expended a great deal of energy for no reward, and within a few minutes the Teal was once more dabbling happily with some of its fellows.
If there is anyone out there reading these blogs then Happy New Year to one, or all!
Graham Smith, Volunteer - Blue House Farm
Monday 12th December 2011
At intervals during the winter months Nick Robson, the Warden, and Tim 
Lawrence, the Assistant Warden, carry out a night-time survey of Brown Hares on the reserve using the Quad-Bike. Nick drives and Tim sits on the back projecting a lamp beam ahead of them. They take a more or less set route across the farm and try to check all compartments (fields). This survey is confined to the winter as there is too great a risk during the summer months of flattening the nests of pipits, larks and Lapwings; also leverets of course. The table below shows the peak count each winter since 2006-07 and includes the latest survey, made a few days ago. Between two and four counts are usually undertaken each winter but in 2010-11 there was only one and that in January, immediately following one of the most severe cold periods we had experienced for three decades; hence (probably) the relatively low numbers. In contrast, the 67 recorded recently is the highest on record since Essex Wildlife Trust acquired the farm twelve years ago, indicating that leveret survival has been good following a dry summer and warm autumn. Population density can vary greatly depending on factors such as the quality and diversity of the habitat, predation, and weather conditions, not just in winter but throughout the year. The figures below show a variation between 12 and 26 hares per kilometer, given that the farm occupies around two and a half square kilometers of land, which is around the mid range of population densities I have seen published and indicates that numbers on the reserve have been in a healthy state throughout this period.
Nationally, there was a widespread decline in the decades following the 1939-45 war and it became scarce in many parts of Essex, especially inland. In my home parish of Ingatestone a local farm worker, Reg Smith, once told me that he thought hares were commoner in the past because far more root crops were grown on local farms than in the modern era. The Hares loved to nibble the sugar beet and were considered to be a serious pest. He recalled a cull taking place in the war, during which the workers on the farm surrounded each of the fields in turn and walked slowly towards the centre, the fleeing animals either being shot, clubbed or set upon by dogs. Very few managed to escape and by the end of the day they had killed over two hundred and fifty.
This story reminded me of a conversation I once had with a visitor to Essex Wildlife Trusts Cockle Spit Reserve at Bradwell. He came from the Saffron Walden area and during a chat about country matters he mentioned that just prior to the last war he had taken part in a day’s shooting during which no less than a thousand hares were killed. He went on to say that the stench in the barn where the bodies were hung was overpowering. Ironically, the conversation then turned to the subject t of foxes. Apparently one had recently broken into his henhouse and killed several chickens. He became very animated about it, heaping all manner of abuse on the animal’s head, and concluded by saying that no manner of death, however slow or cruel, was bad enough for such a bloodthirsty species. Humanity was ever thus!
Enough of killing. I will conclude this blog on a happier note. The bitter winter of 2009-10. A long walk in the snow, the first possible for many years following a succession of namby-pamby winters. I was finding, though, that there is only so much snow a sixty year old can take, both mentally and physically. A warm fire and a good book were beginning to seem preferable to cold feet and numb red ears. The cold forced me to seek shelter in the porch of Margaretting Church, where I enjoyed (kind of) a snack of lukewarm coffee and frozen cheese & pickle sandwiches! A Fox came moseying along the path towards me. It was a large dog Fox, his tawny coat heavily barred with dark grey-brown, and he was carrying what at first I took to be a mouthful of dried grass, presumably to line his lair with, but which on closer inspection turned out to be a long dead Pheasant. He trotted along - head high, tail buoyant - looking so pleased with himself, and passed within a few yards of me, oblivious to my presence. I was left with the impression that for him, on this cold midwinter afternoon, the dividing line between happiness and misery was that mouthful of desiccated pheasant. There is a lesson there somewhere. Simple pleasures!
A chill breeze urged me to leave. As I left for home a Common Buzzard flew low over the nearby farm reservoir, a huge trail of wildfowl, pigeons, gulls, Lapwing, Golden Plover and Starlings billowing in its wake as it flapped and glided across the valley towards the Stock ridge. As I belted round the corner of the rectory to try and obtain a better view four Brown Hares came scampering along the track towards me. They stopped, crouched - ears akimbo, noses all of a twitch - loped forward a few more yards, stopped, twitched some more, fussed, hesitated, then fled! Lewis Carroll to a tee! A beautiful end to what had been a beautiful day.
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Nick and Jonathan Smith, warden at Essex Wildlife Trust’s Tollesbury Wick Reserve, have recently visited our posh neighbour’s reserve at Cattawade RSPB where Rick Vonk, the warden, was very helpful in explaining the problems they have encountered (and overcome) while erecting fencing to protect breeding waders from foxes. During a subsequent meeting at Blue House Farm it was agreed that such fencing would undoubtedly be feasible in order to protect Round Marsh, the main wader breeding area on the farm. All that is needed is the money. Nick, Tim and Alan Shearing, Fundraising Officer at Essex Wildlife Trust are working on it!
It has been a quiet week on the bird front – the reserve settling into a kind of winter somnolence. One of our regular visitors is the Stonechat but there have been very few so far this winter. This species is always badly affected by severe winters, such as those we have experienced in the past two years, and it is not unknown for numbers nationally to crash by anything between 50% and 80% when conditions are particularly bad. They normally bounce back fairly quickly, though, as they often have up to three broods of 4-6 young each summer. It will probably take a mild winter and a productive breeding season next year for them to fully recover this time as whereas they usually winter in pairs there have been only singletons so far this season.
Graham Smith, Volunteer - Blue House Farm
Thursday 1st December
The exceptionally mild, damp weather has led to a resurgence in the number 
of fungi on the farm just when it looked as if the season was drawing to a premature close due to the drought. Whenever you lead fungi forays the first question that is asked is nearly always “can you eat it”? Tony Boniface, the County Recorder for the Essex Field Club, usually replies by growling “the only mushrooms I eat come from Tesco”! A wise comment. When I first became interested in mycology in the 1970s there was only one popular Field Guide on the market. The authors defy my memory but it was published by Collins and was, I believe, a translation of a European guide. It probably covered no more than around 3% of the British fungi but armed with this book and Richard Maybe’s ‘Food for Free’ I proceeded to sample the often subtle flavours of around thirty species over the next few years, a culinary escapade which, in retrospect, makes me go a bit pale round the gills each time I think of it! One of them was Jelly Ear – whose name is descriptive of its appearance – which grows on Elder in the lane leading to the farmhouse. It is reputed to be edible and over the years I’ve tried many ways to make it so - frying, roasting, stewing, steaming, grilling, boiling and casseroling; even grating it raw on a salad - but my efforts always resemble, both in taste and texture, a plateful of elastic bands and all I’ve really succeeded in doing is generating a dozen different ways to acquire indigestion!
One of the commonest mushrooms on the farm at the moment is the aptly named Fool’s Funnel Clitocybe rivulosa. It often grows among the supposedly edible Fairy Ring Champignon Marasmius oreades and as it ages the white cap turns pale brown, resembling that species. Wikkipedia informs me that the main toxic component of Fool’s Funnel is muscarine, and thus the symptoms are those of muscarine poisoning, namely, greatly increased dribbling, sweating, and tear flow within 15-30 minutes of ingestion followed by stomach ache, severe nausea, diarrhea, blurred vision, and laboured breathing. Death is rare, but may result from cardiac or respiratory failure in severe cases. Great! And all for something that is 90% water and of no nutritional value whatsoever!
Other species to have flourished during the past few weeks are those that grow on dung. Most, as you would expect, are a cowpat shade of brown but there are a few exceptions. The Snowy Inkcap Coprinopsis nivea is covered in powdery, cotton-like white fibrils and glows in the gloom on a grey day when all else is drab. Another species to catch the eye is the Ascomycete Coprobia granulata, a species that has no English name. The tiny discs, smooth on the inside, furry beneath, are bright orange red and swarm across freshly dumped dung as soon as a crust has begun to form. Unbelievably, a few strange souls have actually sampled these, although you would probably need several dozen to fill a spoon, and report that the taste is “indistinctive”. Quite. Gritty as well I would have thought. You probably need to be a little eccentric – or a scientist – to specialise in dung fungi anyway as many are extremely tiny and samples of dung have to be collected and kept warm under glass if the spores laying dormant within are to germinate. One of the leading experts on this group of mushrooms is reputed at one time to have had dozens of such specimens lining his mantelpiece and sitting room shelves waiting for this germination to take place. Yes, he was married. Perhaps the specimens were moved when visitors came to stay. Or perhaps they never had any.
Although most would display a certain squeamishness with regards to eating fungi growing directly on dung the same is not true of species that flourish where that dung has been absorbed back into the soil. One such is the familiar Field Mushroom Agaricus campestris, which has been plentiful on the farm in the past week. On this one I would disagree with Tony. Fresh picked and fried the same evening their taste is incomparably better than anything to be found in a supermarket. Two others that I still eat are the Field Lepista saeva and Wood Blewits L. nuda. The latter is bright bluish-lilac in colour and looks distinctive but could be confused by the inexperienced with a potentially dangerous member of the Cortinarius, otherwise known as the Webcaps. Normally associated with trees in parks and woodland it is also to be found on the County’s grazing marshes and in addition to Blue House Farm I have seen it on Essex Wildlife Trust’s Tollesbury Wick Reserve.
A species that I most definitely would not eat is the Fly Agaric Amanita muscaria, a species which, along with the Death Cap and Destroying Angel, belongs to one of the most dangerously poisonous groups of fungi found in Britain. It always grows in association with Birch and the bright red cap of fresh specimens, covered in white spots, makes it an easy species to identify. It has provided the principal seating arrangement for Garden Gnomes since they first evolved many years ago. Although not found at Blue House Farm it does occur on many of Essex Wildlife Trust’s woodland reserves. It is both highly toxic and hallucinogenic. The Lapps are said to feed it to their Reindeer and then drink the resulting urine as the animal’s digestive system destroys the toxins while leaving the hallucinogenic qualities intact. It is not recommended that you try this at home. The Laplanders at least have the excuse of having to endure three months of almost total darkness every winter!
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Water continues to trickle on to the reserve from the catchment area but whereas, most years, the wind pump is in operation from October onwards water levels in the ditches this autumn are still three inches below the level at which pumping can begin. The Wigeon flocks which had started to build up on The Flood have temporarily deserted us for pastures new and the reserve is fairly quiet at the moment. However, Brent Goose numbers have increased to around 1100 and there are 20-25% youngsters among them, the best showing nationally since the 1980s according to some reports. There are also up to 180 Canada Geese and 150 Grey-lags, if you like that sort of thing! The 8 White-fronted Geese which arrived this week are more to my taste as and befits wild birds they usually stand aloof from their larger and more garrulous cousins. Another highlight has been the presence of two Black-necked Grebes among the Dabchicks in Bridgemarsh Creek, a species that visits us most winters.
Graham Smith, Volunteer - Blue House Farm
Thursday 24th November 2011
One of my favourite places at Blue House Farm is the large bay along 
the seawall (known locally as a ‘horseshoe’) situated midway between North Fambridge Boatyard and Bridgemarsh Island. This is the last piece of mud along this stretch of the River Crouch to be covered by the incoming tide and is a good place to sit – tucked out of the wind below the lip of the wall – for an hour or two prior to high water. On a good day a stream of waders fly in for a last feed before the final traces of their dining table are flooded by the rising tide, following which they gather in a sociable hubbub on the muddy islands that remain. It is only when these too are submerged that they are forced to move to their high tide roosts on Bridgemarsh, or further downriver at Wallasea Wetlands. Flocks of Dunlin are often the first to arrive, trotting feverishly across the mud, stitching the surface in search of Hydrobia snails and other morsels. When snow and ice prevail they are often accompanied by parties of Knot, driven from their usual haunts along the exposed shores of the Dengie coast by the bitter weather. Larger than Dunlin, portly, and more sedate in their movements they often feed in compact flocks, a reliable distinguishing feature at any distance. Ringed and Grey Plover are also usually present. Both feed like thrushes, trotting across the mud, pausing, listening with their head to one side, then pouncing on some titbit close to the surface while, in contrast, Redshank dash between them, snatching prey hither and thither. The larger waders such as Black-tailed Godwit and Curlew are usually less anxious to make the most of the remaining mud – except perhaps when on migration – but often gather on the islands an hour or more before high tide to preen or snooze. Not that they get much chance to do the latter if there are Oystercatchers about. Noisy and quarrelsome at all times of year, rival pairs are forever challenging each other, backs raised, heads lowered, trying to intimidate their adversaries with their loud piping calls. Small groups of Avocets often join this throng, sweeping the shallows for shrimps and fry. Always elegant, they bring to mind those fortunate few among my fellow humans who possess the gift of looking smart in all weathers and at all times of day, even when wearing the proverbial potato sack. If only! Standing aloof from the fray, Golden Plover and Lapwing gather in pre-roost flocks on the islands; most often in dozens, occasionally in hundreds, exceptionally – when the fields are soggy with rain and worms are close to the surface – in thousands. Perhaps the best place to witness ‘Goldies’ at roost, though, is at Marshhouse Outall along the nearby Dengie coast. On mild wet winter days several thousand birds gather on the fields behind the seawall, prior to which often they put on a spectacular aerial ballet akin to that performed by Starlings at dusk. Caught unawares, the collective beat of thousands of wings can sound like an express train approaching along the seawall. Suddenly they are upon you, sweeping over your head high into the sky, the flock then splintering, each arm cascading ground-wards, Roman Candle fashion, the sun catching their feathers in a thousand points of light. A few feet above the saltings they surge skywards once more, the separate flocks merging flawlessly and drawing in other groups, freshly arrived from elsewhere along the coast. Often this aerial dance – on variations thereof - goes on for thirty minutes or more before, satisfied with their performance, they settle in the fields to roost. It is one of the great spectacles of the Essex coast in winter.
My enjoyment of the wader gathering that takes place in the bay at Blue House is heightened by the area’s human associations. The horseshoe was created after the original seawall was breached by a series of exceptionally high tides in 1897. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to repair the damage and at low tide the line of posts that mark the course of these temporary dams can be seen along the seaward edge of both this and the smaller bay nearby. Eventually, the Unemployed Workmen Act of 1906 made it possible to establish a colony of jobless workers at South Fambidge and these were ferried across the river each day to carry out the work. Each man worked a 44-hour week in return for the maintenance of his family and provision of fares, lodging, food, pocket money, medical care and some clothing. A harsh regime by today’s standards but almost munificent at a time when inner city poverty had reached appalling levels and the Welfare State was still half a century away. The workmen made several attempts to enclose the horseshoes but these all failed due to further storm tides and the repairs eventually settled along the current line of the wall. The work was in part funded by the two major landowners, Lord Raleigh and J.W.Strutt and it was the former’s descendents who continued to own the farm until the Trust took over in 1998. This and other fascinating details relating to the history of the farm are contained in a report produced by Louise Barker and Paul Pattison on behalf of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (2000). Resting waders and toiling workers; thanks to them both are now in view for me at the same time; the one viewed through the prism of the physical eye, the other through that of the imagination. Truly, my generation has been a fortunate one!
In addition to the gathering on the mud today - which included several Cormorants hanging out their wings to dry - a feeding frenzy of Black-headed Gulls in the shallows provided a further spectacle. They had discovered a large shoal of fish fry close to the surface, perhaps driven there by predatory Sea Bass attacking them from below. What began as the chance discovery by a couple of birds soon became a mob of a hundred or more, bickering noisily among themselves as they hovered above, then dipped into the waves, emerging with a wriggling sliver of silver which they swallowed rapidly, lest an opportunistic neighbour rob them of their prize. The commotion soon attracted other predators – a male and two female Red-breasted Mergansers, four Dabchicks and at least seven Great Crested Grebes. Two of the roosting Cormorants also slipped into the water, although their target was not the fry but the larger fish attacking them. Finally, wonderfully, a bullet of blue and red was revealed as a Kingfisher, who used the line of now partially submerged posts remaining from those failed seawall repairs to claim his share of this largesse.
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Following a few days of rain three weeks ago the shutters between west and east have fallen once more and November is on course to become the driest on record in this part of the world. The farm is still desperately short of water, although a little has seeped into the fleets from the catchment area along the Woodham-Althorne ridge. The reserve is not without a few birds though. Water Rails are very obliging at the moment, feeding openly on the edge of the muddy pools that remain, and there have been a few sightings of Bearded Tits in the fringing reeds. Raptors are also very much to the fore – Sparrowhawk, Buzzard, Peregrine, Merlin, Marsh and Hen Harriers having all been recorded during the past week. Another bird of note was a Red-necked Grebe in Bridgemarsh Creek. Finally, a local Barn Owl enthusiast, Robert Harvey, reports that at least four pairs have reared second broods along the Dengie coast this autumn, two of them fledging young this week, at around the same time as the pair in the Blue House Farm barn would have done so, had they decided to incubate their second clutch. One can only hope that the current mild weather prevails well into the winter.
Graham Smith, Volunteer - Blue House Farm
Monday 14th November 2011
Work parties in winter alternate between Blue House and three other Trust 
reserves – Thrift Wood, Bicnacre; Shotgate Thickets, Wickford, and Stow Maries Halt, near Cold Norton. Felling fifty year old stands of Hornbeam and Sweet Chestnut coppice to encourage the growth of Common Cow-wheat, the food plant of the reintroduced Heath Fritillary, is the main work at Thrift; scrub clearance and grassland restoration at the other two. The work presents a peaceful, age-old scene on a winter’s morning, albeit the buzz of the chain saw has largely replaced the sound of the axe. But the groan and thump of falling coppice; the steadily accumulating piles of logs and brash; the wisps of wood smoke curling slowly up through the trees; and the chat of the woodsmen (us volunteers, in case you were wondering!) as we sit round the fire at lunch time, is a scene that has been re-enacted countless times in past millennia. Not every one agrees though. A few see the felling of even a single oak tree as a sacrilegious act. No amount of discourse about the coppicing cycle, grassland restoration, the loss of nearly all our species rich meadows in the past fifty years, or even a last desperate appeal that that great oracle of the modern age, Google, should be consulted does any good! It is difficult, sometimes, to explain to people that the only reason the woods where they love to wander and walk the dog survive is because they are situated on very poor soil and in the past were not considered worth clearing to grow crops or, just as likely, because they provided a useful source of income and locally sourced woodland products for the landowner.
Thanks to us volunteers Thrift, at least, still provides a useful source of income to the current landowner, to whit, Essex Wildlife Trust. We were all novice woodsmen when we started but soon learned a few basic truths, namely, that Hornbeam logs weigh a great deal more than those of Sweet Chestnut, even though the former rot more quickly and are of use only for firewood whereas the latter last far longer and are transported to Blue House Farm for use as fence posts. You also learn that when starting a log pile to put the huge Hornbeam logs, with a diameter of a foot or more, at the bottom of the heap. Some of these need four people to carry them, using a knotted rope slung beneath each end, with a volunteer on each ‘handle’, and if the log pile is already waist high then gas blows from all orifices when you attempt to heave what feels like half a ton of log on top of them. It is not a job for the faint hearted, either literally or figuratively. Still, it’s great fun and good exercise – far better than the mind numbing boredom of a gym.
Another good form of exercise is pulling up birch saplings, a task that occupies a lot of time at another Essex Wildlife Trust reserve, The Backwarden, Danbury. Heathland restoration is the task here. Heather is a sadly wimpish plant, especially in its early stages, and is easily bullied into submission not only by saplings but bramble, gorse and bracken as well; even coarse grasses at times. Keeping them in check is a never ending task. That the project has been so successful is in large part due to the warden, Barry Hough, who has worked on the reserve thrice weekly, almost without fail, since he retired 12-14 years ago. Whereas it is easy to see the benefits to wildlife of coppicing there are times, when birch saplings seem to be springing up behind your back as you work, when re-creating a heath feels almost like an attempt to preserve a museum piece - a habitat that has had its day and would rapidly revert to woodland were the work to stop. The reward comes when you see Adders basking in the March sunshine on the banks of a hibernaculum, where they have spent the winter; Green Hairstreaks nectaring at Alder Blackthorn blossom in May; the scarce Green Tiger Beetle scurrying across the path near where you are working in midsummer; and the full glory of the heather in August, when the air vibrates with the busy buzzing of Honey Bees! Joy too to see the large sphagnum bog (a rare habitat in Essex nowadays) gradually emerging from its shroud of trees and many rare plants and invertebrates gradually re-colonising it. One of the latest to arrive has been the Scarce Emerald Damselfly, a nationally rare insect that is largely confined to the coast in Essex, while a Silver-washed Fritillary was seen near here in 2010 and at Thrift Wood this summer, a species which seems to be returning to Essex after an absence lasting many decades.
As for museum pieces, what goes around sometimes comes around. There are now at least four billion people striving to attain the same standard of living – courtesy of the planet’s diminishing resources – that we in the west have enjoyed for the past few decades. It is not difficult to envisage a time – not as far distant as we like to imagine – when greater use of local resources once more becomes a necessity rather than a luxury. Indeed, it may be one of the few small benefits of such a situation. A greater one may be that we at last realise that we are dependant on the planet we inhabit and do not operate independently from it, as many seem to believe. If, for instance, necessity dictates that Sunday lunchtime’s left over spuds and sprouts are once more served up as Monday evening’s Bubble & Squeak and in so doing helps cut down on our current appalling levels of food waste then it will be no bad thing!
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The few days heavy rain last week has seen a small rise in water levels on the fleets but the invisible barrier between east and west seems to have descended again this week, trapping the rain in an increasingly soggy Wales while we have experienced little but grey skies and drizzle. There are now two Short-eared Owls on the reserve while a Long-eared Owl has apparently been roosting in a hedgerow close to the railway for the past ten days or more. There has also been a report of 6 Whooper Swans in the River Crouch. My best views of Short-eared Owls this week, though, has been at nearby Stow Maries Aerodrome, where I witnessed a prolonged aerial battle between one of the four birds present and a male Kestrel. The latter was extraordinarily plucky, locking talons with the much more powerful owl on occasion, at which time feathers flew – whose I’m not sure! Perhaps it was unhappy at the invasion of its territory by four hungry Nordic owls, and the likely diminishment of its winter food supply, especially as some evenings it also had up to four Little, three Barn and two Tawny Owls to contend with!
Graham Smith, Volunteer - Blue House Farm
Thursday 3rd November 2011
Fencing is the most frequent occupation of the Blue House Farm volunteers 
at this time of year. Much of the original fencing, using softwood posts, was put in place by contractors soon after Essex Wildlife Trust bought the farm twelve years ago and many are now approaching the end of their useful life, becoming rotten beneath the ground. They are still adequate for containing sheep but not cattle. The former are adept at finding ways to squirm beneath gaps at the base of a fence whereas the latter simply barge straight through them! Especially cows with calves. One day last autumn Nick, Tim and Andrew (the stockman) were moving a group of cows from one field to another when they discovered that a small calf was missing, being alerted to this mishap by the distressed bellowing of its mother. All three searched for it during the hour before darkness fell but then had to give up until the following morning. She knew where it was hiding though. By dawn the next day she was reunited with her calf, having demolished four fences and crossed a steep-sided water filled ditch in order to reach it. It was thought that it had holed up in one of the reed-beds. When human beings behave like this it is known as motherly love, when cows do it, it is known as instinct, but then we were always one for claiming exclusive rights to the evolutionary high ground in matters of this sort. Animals are more likely to be given exclusive rights when it comes to the less desirable habits of human nature! No matter. Whether love or instinct (or a combination of both) were involved, having found her calf she had no intention of losing it again and did her best to trample Andrew underfoot when he tried to check on their wellbeing!
There is great satisfaction to be found in fencing. First the old stock and barbed wire have to be un-stapled using fencing pliers and the rotten posts removed. A new hole then has to be started using a pointed heavy metal bar – with a dollop of water to soften the ground if it is particularly dry – and the new post rammed home using the ‘donker’. This is a very heavy metal tube, open at one end with a handle on either side, which fits over the post and has to be heaved high and slammed down to hammer the post in to the ground : five ‘donks’ to start with, to make sure the line is right, then a series of ten ‘donks’ until the post is at the required height, each of the two people involved doing their best to pretend that they are less out of breath than their partner! If there is a bend in the field boundary a much larger ‘turning post’ has to be put in place, this requiring a hole two feet deep to be dug before the post is rammed home using the bucket on the tractor, the earth then being filled in around it. The new hardwood posts, mostly sweet chestnut, come from Essex Wildlife Trust reserves at Thrift Wood, Bicnacre and Pound Wood, near Rayleigh. The line wire then has to be fitted, stretched and stapled to the base of the posts followed by the stock wire and finally two strands of barded wire. Sometimes all goes well, sometimes it does not, in which case a few “sugars” are to be heard strumming along the wires! A well constructed fence, though, is a thing of beauty; a beauty that, admittedly, I was unaware of until I became a volunteer at Blue House Farm! Nick and Tim – the former of whom trained a fencer before he became involved in conservation work – ensure that all the fences on the reserve are built to last, unless of course a cow loses her calf..............
In winter, the rotten wood at the base of the old softwood fence posts often harbour large congregations of hibernating Ladybirds. Three species are involved, the commonest of which is the 16-spot, followed by the 22-spot and, lastly, the familiar 7-spot, which occurs only in small numbers. Up to six hundred of the first named have been counted on a single post, the rotten, crumbling wood presumably providing an ideal micro-climate of warmth and moisture that best suits their needs. We do our best to keep disturbance to a minimum, leaving the base of the rotten post in the ground, and hopefully most of them survive until the spring. Curiously, you see very few during the summer, most leading their lives unobtrusively deep within the grass tussocks, but a few other species have been seen from time to time including the 2-spot, 11-spot, Water Ladybird (which feeds on aphids in the bank-side vegetation along the fleets) and, inevitably, that interloper from abroad, the Harlequin Ladybird. Occasionally, like many other insects (including the Marmalade Fly mentioned in a previous piece) they undergo spectacular population surges or mass migrations and then they do come to the publics’ notice. Many years ago, back in the mists of memory, there was a huge influx of 7-spot Ladybirds into southern England, the air often being so thick with them that you would return from a short walk adorned with dozens of insects that had crash landed on to your clothes. One day I was walking along the beach at Bradwell Cockle Spit Reserve at high tide when I noticed a thick grey scum along the water’s edge. It was three or four feet wide in places and two or three inches deep and closer inspection revealed tha