We have completed laying and fixing the rock fall netting on the new spillway! Thank you to all that helped-it is amazing what you can achieve with team work. In total it took us about 7 days over a 5 week period. So, after 3 months with 2 excavators, a tractor, 300 rolls of rockfall netting and 2300 pegs to fix it down. We have finished the project and Havergate can get back to its normal and peaceful self.
Getting the wire pinned down
The end is in site
The wildlife hasn’t been put off at all with the disturbance, in fact, with the water levels being so low we have had record numbers of birds being recorded. We headed out over the weekend to carry out a count and recorded:
72 cormorant, 240 greylag geese, 170 shelduck, 563 wigeon, 151 gadwall, 131 mallard, 501 teal, 38 pintail, 135 shoveler, 10 marsh harrier, sparrowhawk, kestrel, rough legged buzzard, 359 avocet, 14 ringed plover, 3 golden plover, 43 grey plover, 13 lapwing, knot, 772 dunlin, 24 ruff, 2 bar tailed godwit, 235 black tailed godwit, 9 curlew, 333 redshank, 2 spotted redshank, 17 rock pipit, 10 meadow pipit, 150 skylark.
All our trips to Havergate have finished for this year, however we have got all the trips and events that we will be running next year up on our website www.rspb.org.uk/havergateisland and ready to be booked onto.
It'd be bad enough counting 240 greylag, but 772 tiny little dunlin? Rather you than me! :-)