The majority of this year so far has seen me keeping a close eye on the wind predications hoping that that a gap of clear weather would come along soon. I'm glad to say that gap finally arrived in the form of a sunny and calm saturday (January 11th 2014). Although the tide would be falling from first light (causing a race against time to get back on dry land before being stranded on the mud), I decided to get up in the early morning hours and make a dash for it. As you can see, I was not disappointed:
The primary reason that I was so keen to get out and have a close look at the RSPB reserve on the Langstone Harbour islands was to see just what affects the great storm of christmas 2013 had had on them. My biggest fear was that the shingle ridges on the islands would be so transformed as to threaten the existence of the harbours unique seabird colonies. As it turned out, that worry was unfounded.
There have been local changes and last years conservation work has been eroded significantly but in other places the situation has actually improved.
You can see in the photo above that the shingle ridge has rolled back to a degree and in some places now has a steeper and higher profile. This may well benefit the Little Tern colony that nests here by providing new desirable habitat. In the millennia before our domestic lifestyle limited them to a few spots, shingle nesting seabirds would generally take advantage of new features as they were created by winter storms. By moving to new areas, it prevented predators from knowing exactly where a good food source to raise their young would be each year in advance and increased the number of young seabirds that survived. Today, where most shingle areas are unsuitable due to human activities, these species have no choice but to come back to the same areas each year. Although these new areas in Langstone are still very close (and so any predators would re-find them easily), it's amazing to see this process in action and I'll be watching closely to see where the birds choose to nest when they return.
It is a mixed blessing though as a lot of this material has come from the conservation work we carried out last year to provide suitable habitat. Although we always expected shingle to move relatively fast along the ridges over the space of a few years, we didn't expect this much movement in just one. As you'd expect, the smallest grains of stone and sand are the ones that have travelled the furthest and so the current nesting areas are formed of larger shingle than you'd generally see the smaller species of seabird (Little Terns or Ringed Plovers for example) nesting in. We'll be aiming to address this in a sustainable way as part of our works this year.
Of course, it's not just shingle that's been moved around these last few weeks though. We're now up to boat number 9 to be washed ashore since this cycle of storms began. This one's another yacht and has made landfall on South Binness Island, just next to a 'No Landing, Nature Reserve' sign (it's ok, just this once...!)
Eleswhere in the harbour, the brent geese are continuing to feed up before returning to siberia. Here's where you can help. If you see Brent Geese feeding on land anywhere in the solent area, please get in touch and let us know. You can reach me on wez.smith@rspb.org.uk. I look forward to hearing from you.