It’s not often I get the chance to visit Havergate, so I jumped at the chance to help with this weekend’s event. In fact, it was my first visit for more than four years!
Havergate is an amazing place. The saline lagoons are already heaving with wading birds, and the saltmarsh is ablaze with the purple flowers of sea lavender.
But it’s the brown hares that attract the most attention. They must be among the tamest in the country. The best area is among the gorse close to the volunteers’ chalet, and on our visit today they were particularly obliging – as can be seen from the photos below.
The highlight on the lagoons was the flock of eight spoonbills on Main lagoon, though typically they spent most of their time asleep. Up to 200 avocets are already using the lagoons, alongside flocks of curlews, redshanks, oystercatchers and dunlins.
Among the dunlins, I picked out a curlew sandpiper and three knots, all mainly in summer plumage. On Cottage Flood we saw a few summer plumage turnstones alongside flocks of common and Sandwich terns, and a greenshank, but no sign of Kieren’s spotted redshank from earlier.
The island’s nesting barn owls remained asleep but while watching a distant marsh harrier it was mobbed by a large falcon: a peregrine. Superb.
All too soon it was time to return to the jetty where Kieren and Aaron were just arriving with the next group. The return journey on October Storm was accompanied by fishing flocks of terns. Hopefully it won’t be another four years till I return.