Wallasea Island Wild Coast project

My first day as an Assistant Warden at Wallasea Island started by arriving at the office in the morning. As I have volunteered at Wallasea for three and a half years, I was already familiar with the island and some of the Wardens, Rachel and Simon, so settling into the work environment felt natural.

After I had greeted everyone, I was then briefed by Simon on what exactly an Assistant Warden’s tasks are and what I was…

The final phases of habitat creation on Wallasea Island are nearing competition as the contractors have now been on site since late May so we thought we would take this opportunity to let you know what’s going on.  The attached map shows the design of Wallasea Island.

To the south west of the reserve is cell 4 (yet to be named) which is eventually going to contain three separate lagoons fed from the sluice on the…

If you have visited Wallasea Island in the past couple of weeks you may have noticed that along with the Marsh Flat Trail being closed, there are now some rather large yellow trucks on site. So the trucks relate to the reason behind the closure of the trail as it’s the beginning of the end for the habitat restoration works on Wallasea Island with BAMS working on Grass Farm Lagoon. The remedial works will include replacing…

It turned out to be a sunny but breezy day. After a quick introduction to the island and the habitat work being done by the RSPB the group stopped briefly to watch Little Grebe and Coot chicks with their parents in the borrowdyke by the car park and then headed out on the Marsh Trail.  

Our first Avocets and Little Egrets showed well by the main sluice and Common Terns passed close by, hunting small fish in the pools…

Please come and explore our new Marsh Flat Trail opened today!

You can take a shorter 1.5km circular walk which gives you excellent views of our lagoons (soon to be filled we hope) or you can strike out on a longer 4.5km walk which takes you on a loop around the grazing marsh and back to the car park.

We have many waders on our new lagoons depsite not being full plus large numbers of raptors hunting the voles through…

26^th November 2016

Having had to cancel the previous scheduled walk on 12^th due to very unpleasant weather conditions it was pleasing to have relatively light winds and whilst not especially sunny it was bright enough, although at the start Southend was hidden in the distant mist.

Starting at high tide meant the waders were all congregated on roosts on Allfleets Marsh with maybe a hundred or so Dunlin and 20-30 Grey…

What a glorious day we had for our Raptor Ramble. Perfect conditions with total calm and warm enough not to need heavy coats. We held our usual orientation chat about the island from up on the sea wall overlooking Allfleets Marsh with the water millpond still at high tide. The group were then privileged to have an early view of the new trails that provide access around the new lagoons and open grassland areas. These will…

The participants meeting in the car park at Wallasea were greeted by a somewhat cooler day and some light but persistent showers in stark contrast to past few weeks. After a quick orientation chat about the island and its recent history we set off to view the island from atop the sea wall. From here the extensive views south across the rough grassland habitat of Marsh Flats, complete with grazing cattle, and north over…

Over the next few months, we will be installing sluices that allow us to let water from the River Crouch into our Grass Farm Lagoon.  Works will be close to the sea wall but the footpath will remain open throughout.

This work will also allow us to fill Acresfleet lagoons east of Grass Farm, the adjacent creek network and the perimeter ditch that goes around Marsh Flats, our grazing marsh.

Once the works have finished…

The new Jubilee Marsh is seeing its first breeding season and we have over 40 avocets using the lagoons here as well as in other areas across the island.  Elsewhere we also have a pair of little ringed plovers and although only here for a short while our first spoonbill.

The other exciting new visitors to the island are our cows.  The herd will grow to about 25 in number over the coming weeks.  These are currently…

We are now letting some saline water onto our large saline lagoon, which has made a huge difference to the look and feel of it.  The continuing tidal influx will bring in food and there are increasing numbers of wintering waders and waterfowl on here and on Jubilee Marsh.  Lapwings, golden plover, dunlin, redshank, shelduck, teal and wigeon are all in large numbers with smaller numbers of grey plover seen.  There are few…

It has been great the last few weeks to see how the newly-created landscape looks now the water has come in with tide.  This weekend we will see the tide enter some of the lagoons that haven't yet filled with water.  Some of the low lying lagoons have filled already like the picture below shows but those higher and nearer to the sea wall remain dry.

On Saturday11th July the diggers took 3 sections of the old sea wall…

Shipping in of Crossrail spoil has currently ceased until February as the contractors are busy working on large water control structures in preparation for the sea wall breaching in the summer. This momentous occasion will be a huge milestone for the project and we hope to celebrate this in July of this year.
Crossrail have now imported nearly 3 million cubic tonnes of spoil from the tunneling under London and the reserve…

We’ve had an increase in visitors the last few weeks, both human and avian...

Short-eared owl by Russell Sherriff

Many visitors to the reserve have come to catch some great views of the hen harriers, marsh harriers and short-eared owls that are hunting across the reserve daily.  Some have taken some great images of these birds hunting across the rough grassland and wild bird cover.  I wish I was as good a photographer…

There is only a week now until the One Wild Day at Wallasea and we can't wait!

This event is an amazing opportunity to come along and discover the incredible work for wildlife that is happening right here in Essex. The Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project is an exceptionally ambitious project aiming to transform this island back into a magical intertidal coastal marshland of over 600 hectares. This event will…

Exciting times for our Saline lagoon as work has started on the sluice structures.  Visitors will have seen a large crane has appeared to get the 20m+ piling into the ground.  This will be to hold the inlet sluice which will be under enormous pressure from the incoming tide.  The piling for the outlet structures will be much reduced as the pressure of water on an outgoing tide is much smaller.

Also, contractors are restarting…

Now we have had a period of good weather the bulldozers and dumper trucks are working at full capacity.  Eighteen dumper trucks are moving about 44,000 tonnes of soil each week.  They are hauling it to the south east corner of the island where the future landscape is beginning to form out of the flat surface.  Creeks are appearing, islands have been formed and lower areas will create future lagoons.

June will be an exciting…

Spring has definitely arrived at Wallasea Island.  Skylarks are singing and peacock butterflies are flying.  The warm weather is encouraging hibernating animals to venture out, flowers to appear and insects to fly.

The better weather is also meaning that work is now continuing apace with our re-creation of Essex coast on the eastern part of Wallasea Island.  Crossrail has now imported over 1.5 million tonnes of soil which…

Please find attached notes from the Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project's Local Liaison Group on 29 January.*

Please note that we are holding our 6th annual Wallasea celebration event - One Wild Day at Wallasea - on 20 July. Further details to follow very soon.

*The Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project Local Liaison Group draws together members of key groups in the local community. The six-mionthly meetings are…

It's that time again.

We had a meeting of the Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project's Local Liaison Group on 24 July. See notes attached and see the blog below for details and reasoning behind this post.

Please note that we are holding our 5th annual Wallasea celebration event - One Wild Day at Wallasea - on 29 September. Further details to follow very soon.

Best wishes,

Chris 

RSPB Wallasea Island Project…

Hi there,

The Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project Local Liaison Group draws together members of key groups in the local community. The six-mionthly meetings are used to inform members of progress and to discuss/resolve any significant issues. The constitution of the group is dicated by our planning permission from Essex County Council.

We agreed at the last meeting that the notes should be available to a wider audeince…

Hot on the heels of our official VIP launch, our third annual Wild Coast Weekend drew record numbers of visitors from near and far. As Saturday dawned hot and sunny, three times the previous year's number of people explored the island on bike, bus or boot.

A choice of activities kept families busy, including the wildlife safari trail, creative crafts and close up viewing of lizards, caught on the island that day…

With the new Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, officially launching the construction of Wallasea Island yesterday, we are now inviting members of the public and the local community to come and celebrate. The Wild Coast Weekend takes place on the 22 and 23 September and is totally free!

For the first time, visitors will be able to see the large construction machines being used to shift the 4.5 million tonnes of…

Wallasea is becoming known for its unusual partnerships and this week saw a new one develop.  No golden arches have sprung up on the island, but thanks to our friends in Rochford Council, a team of young staff from McDonalds spent an afternoon on site.

The teams from four McDonalds' branches in Southend are usually better known for their burger sales, but this week came along on a litter pick very different from those…

In stark contrast to the mountain bike excitement at the Hadleigh Olympic venue , Wallasea was a calm haven in the summer sunshine this weekend. However, this time of year is always tinged with a little sadness for me, as the vast crop fields are harvested and the buzz of insects and chirp of the corn buntings is dispersed to the seawalls and further afield.

This year is different though, with the contractors now in…