Rare Bird Flies Into Wallasea

Now before all you twitchers book your flights and pack your cars - read on. This is a very special bird, but not one that is going to disappear before you get here!

Back in the mists of time, last year when I joined this project, I had a daft notion to create a children's character for the island.  The local history of smugglers and shipping encouraged my vivid imagination to  conjure up a Johnny Depp/Pirate of the Carribean type character swaggering round the place (don't laugh, you boys, I'm sure lots of girls will share this notion!). Of course it had to be a type of bird for the RSPB, and not just any bird - our aspirational species, the Spoonbill!
Well, my drawing skills are a bit rusty so a plea for an artist resulted in local community artist John Bulley digging around in my brain,  heaven help him, and extracting the image of what became Wallasea Walter - you may have seen John on a  previous blog in October, pictured at our Wild Coast Weekend and the wonderful cartoon image he created is in our gallery too.

The next logical step was to bring Walter to life , to amuse the visiting school pupils. Luckily for me, I discovered a very talented young costume maker in nearby Wickford. Recently graduated Samantha Jones has an impressive portfolio of stage costumes and works with various theatres in London and around the country so I guess she was used to strange requests like mine. She has been working on Wally, designing the costume,sourcing the right fabrics,and finally actually making the whole thing for several months,  but this week Wallasea Walter finally flew into Wallasea.
The last spoonbill to reside on Wallasea Island was shot over a hundred years ago, but in these enlightened days of bird protection these wonderful birds are seen regularly in South Essex so we hope to attract the real thing in years to come, once our new nature reserve develops to their liking.  The real Walter and his friendswill not be needing  flak jackets!

In the meantime, look out for our larger than life version at our family events and local activities.
And now without further ado.....heeeeere's Wally!