Want to visit?
Before we get into the gossip of the island, I would like to highlight that our trips are due start up again towards the end of July. We are running a great selection of guided, unguided and photography trips over a range of dates all of which can be found on our website; https://events.rspb.org.uk/havergateisland.
One of our most popular trips is the Havergate Adventure which is running from Saturday 20th August – Monday 22nd August. This is a great trip for all of the family as it is organised and guided by the Woodbridge local group. It is a great way to visit Havergate, get to know what wildlife can be seen out there, learn a bit about the island and is also the only trip where you can treat yourself to a cup of tea and cake! Again, all information and booking details can be found here; https://events.rspb.org.uk/havergateisland.
Island Highlights
The warden team and volunteers have been busy on Havergate these past few months monitoring the wildlife and tidying up the island ready for when the visitor trips start up again in a couple of weeks. Hides have been maintained and cleaned, boardwalks repaired, roofs replaced, and vegetation controlled to name a few of the many jobs!
Despite a rather iffy start to the season the birds on the island have done very well. We had a top count of 81 nesting Canada geese that love to nest on the sea walls, 10 graylags and a Barnacle pair. Our gull numbers are very similar to the previous years with 1533 AON (apparently occupied nests) of Lesser black backs and 667 AON of Herring gull.
The spoonbills kept us on the edge of our seats at the beginning of the season starting later than last year (as well as showing up and then disappearing) but we can now happily report we have 9 nests and it is looking like we could have 15 fledged chicks – a few less than last year but still absolutely fantastic.
Our big project of the year is that of replacing the islands jetty legs this October so the island will be closed to visitors from the 19th September for a few weeks. The current jetty was built about 20 years ago and has served us well. However, in recent times we have noticed that the wooden legs have started to show signs of rotting away. We plan to replace these legs with recycled plastic posts which should ensure it happily lasts another 20 years – possibly more.
We must now find the time to give our visitor boat ‘October Storm’ her annual paint and spruce up before the end of the month. She is incredibly hard to keep clean as she is out on the river all year round and the gulls absolutely love to chill out, eat their crab lunches and generally leave a mess behind for us.