Essex Field Club on Facebook

Visit Our Centre

EFC Centre at Wat Tyler Country ParkOur centre is available for visits on a pre-booked basis on Wednesdays between 10am - 4pm. The Club’s activities and displays are also usually open to the public on the first Saturday of the month 11am - 4pm.

About us


Video about the Club Essex Field Club video

registered charity
no 1113963
HLF Logo A-Z Page Index

Your Forum

This forum has now been more or less replaced by the Club's Facebook page at
Essex Field Club on Facebook




The weblog below is for naturalists to use to report interesting sightings, ask questions, report on field meetings and generally post pictures and any information or questions generally relevant in some way to the wildlife and geology of Essex. You will need to register and be logged-on to post to the forum, and you need to upload pictures first, for use in posts. Find out more


Wed 12th January 2011 17:11 by Graham Smith
Life returns
January 10th 2011 : Blue House Farm EWT Reserve, North Fambridge : After December's deep freeze comes the thaw. The crust of snow and ice that covered the fields and fleets a few weeks ago has been replaced by puddles of water and the squelch of mud, forcing visitors to hop from ridge to ridge or - if they are sensible enough to wear wellies - splash across the furrows of the old ploughlines in the Flat Fields as they make their way round the reserve. Worms and other invertebrates, driven deep underground by the frost, have been forced back towards the surface as the lighter soils above the London Clay become waterlogged. Birds have been quick to exploit this change in fortunes : whereas a week or two ago many were hovering on the brink of starvation as they struggled to find food in a landscape where even the saltings were covered in ice, now there is food a plenty. Many, including most of the area's wintering Lapwing and Golden Plover fled south and west out of necessity at the onset of the cold weather. Often at such times they head for the slightly warmer climes of south-western England and Ireland but as conditions there were as bad, if not worse, than in the east during December most probably moved on to France, Spain, or even Italy. This is bad news for them as Michael Shrubb, in his monograph on the Lapwing (2007), comments that even in this day and age up to a million are shot in these countries each winter, a slaughter bordering on the criminal given that this species is declining in most parts of its breeding range. The thought that some of the Lapwing chicks which I watched with trepidation last summer as they struggled through the five long weeks from hatching to fledging may have ended up on a French gourmet's plate is not a happy one!

Now they are back, or at least the Lapwing are (the Golden Plover have yet to follow suit), over 3000 crowding the pasture fields close to the farm house in recent days along with 2000 or more Starlings (many, no doubt, visitors from the Russian steppe), 500 Rooks, 200 Black-tailed Godwit and 100 Curlew while Round Marsh, the fifty acre field that is deliberately flooded each winter, freed of ice for the first time in over a month, was smothered in feeding wildfowl, 2500 Wigeon, 1200 Teal and 200 Pintail among them. They presented a fest of life guaranteed (one hopes) to raise the glummest spirit on a grey winter's day when all other life seems to be dormant.

It was not only the lives of Lapwing and Golden Plover that were disrupted by the plunge in temperatures during December, many other species were displaced from their usual winter haunts. There was an exceptional influx of grey geese into Essex, especially White-fronts, with up to 400 on Wallasea and 160 at Blue House. With them came several Bean Geese and a few Pink-feet while at Blue House the resident flock of Canada/Barnacle hybrids were joined by around 50 pure bred Barnacles, the presence of a colour ringed bird amongst them suggesting that these were genuinely wild rather than feral birds. The wintering flocks of Dark-bellied Brent Geese, which breed in Western Siberia, were also joined by several of their Pale-bellied cousins from Greenland and Svalbard. All these birds could have arrived from ice covered haunts elsewhere in Britain but some at least had probably fled the polders of Holland, where temperatures were on a par with those in Scotland. Such movements were commonplace in the harsh winters of the 1970s and 1980s but have seldom occured during the much milder version of the past two decades.

link
 

Archives:

May 2020
Aug 2019
Jan 2019
Sep 2018
Jul 2016
Oct 2015
Jul 2015
May 2015
Apr 2015
Mar 2015
Feb 2015
Jan 2015
Dec 2014
Oct 2014
Sep 2014
Aug 2014
Jul 2014
May 2014
Apr 2014
Mar 2014
Feb 2014
Jan 2014
Dec 2013
Nov 2013
Sep 2013
Aug 2013
Jul 2013
Jun 2013
May 2013
Apr 2013
Mar 2013
Feb 2013
Jan 2013
Dec 2012
Nov 2012
Oct 2012
Sep 2012
Aug 2012
Jul 2012
Jun 2012
May 2012
Apr 2012
Mar 2012
Feb 2012
Jan 2012
Dec 2011
Nov 2011
Oct 2011
Sep 2011
Aug 2011
Jul 2011
Jun 2011
May 2011
Apr 2011
Mar 2011
Feb 2011
Jan 2011
Dec 2010
Nov 2010
Oct 2010
Sep 2010
Aug 2010
Jul 2010
Jun 2010
May 2010
Apr 2010
Mar 2010
Feb 2010
Nov 2009
Oct 2009
Aug 2009
Jul 2009
Jun 2009
May 2009
Apr 2009
Mar 2009
Feb 2009
Jan 2009
Nov 2008
Oct 2008
Sep 2008
Aug 2008
Jul 2008
Jun 2008
May 2008
Apr 2008
Mar 2008
Feb 2008
Jan 2008
Dec 2007
Nov 2007

current posts