We are walking through our second challenge in The Steps Series.
The Steps Series is a set of challenges – everyone can help us walk or run the same distance as a migratory route of one of Rainham’s wildlife visitors, or even distances to places - all your steps can count.
At the moment we are walking the black-tailed godwit challenge - we have to get a black-tailed godwit back to Iceland! It's over double the distance of the first challenge at 1369 miles equating to 3,011,800 steps! How long do you think it will take us?
This picture is of a wintering black-tailed godwit by Jerry Hoare
In less than 15 days we have walked over 1.5 million steps! Thank you so much everyone - we are doing well. For this challenge we have stop offs along the way at some of our reserves where we might see the bird have a rest:
This picture shows the 'route we will be taking' through the UK until we head off to Iceland.
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So far we have whizzed past a couple of stop off points but I wanted to blog about these amazing places along the route.
After 222,200 steps, or 101 miles, we would have reached the RSPB Stour Estuary nature reserve.
The Stour Estuary is a nature reserve in Essex, England, east of Colchester on the estuary of the River Stour. Enjoy trails up to five miles long as you stroll through the woods. To watch wading birds, ducks and geese on the estuary, visit during the autumn and winter.
Stour Estuary (Andy Hay rspb-images.com)
Stour Estuary reserve is unusual in an Eastern England context as it comprises of woodland immediately next to the Stour Estuary, which gives rise to visitors possibly hearing both woodpeckers and waders (black-tailed godwits are one of the star species!) or dunnocks and ducks at the same time, which can be quite confusing! The woodland is most important for it’s ancient woodland flora (with a superb display of wood anemones and bluebells in the spring) but you can also expect to see a vibrant butterfly population, along with the more specialist moths and fungi at different times of the year.
Bracket fungus, Stour Estuary RSPB reserve (Andy Hay rspb-images.com).
Probably planted over existing ancient woodland, Stour and Copperas Woods now comprises mostly of sweet chestnut trees, with efforts underway currently to improve the woodland species diversity.
The estuarine parts of the reserve hold the most important intertidal roosts on the Stour Estuary (Deep Fleet and Erwarton Bay), which between them have held up to 20,000 wintering waders and wildfowl on occasion. The saltmarsh supports a number of locally rare plants including two uncommon sea lavender species.
Stour Estuary nature reserve (Andy Hay rspb-images.com)
The RSPB carries out a lot of really important conservation management in these woods, aimed mainly at maintaining the habitats for birds to breed in, and for one of the UKs rarest mammals, the dormouse. Our management involves coppicing, which means felling defined areas of the wood (called coppice coupes) on a long-term rotation. The wood is sold locally as either firewood or timber.
Additionally, the RSPB are currently carrying out a project to help to diversify the woodland structure and species composition in both Stour and Copperas Woods. This project involves planting different native tree species in areas which previously contained sweet-chestnut trees (non-native, planted by the Romans we think approx. 2000 years ago)
Another part of this project will be to increase the wetness of the middle of Stour Wood, by changing the drainage regime there. This is aimed at species such as nightingale which breeds locally in our woodlands but has been declining in numbers in recent years.
If you wanted to visit the Stour Estuary nature reserve the trails up to five miles long as you stroll through a wood and watch wading birds, ducks and geese on the estuary. Shorter paths are wheelchair accessible in dry weather, but all the tracks can be muddy after rain.
Find our more about Stour Estuary nature reserve here.