Stanpit Marsh Christchurch

‘Is your journey absolutely necessary’ and ‘There is a severe weather warning for Hampshire of ice on roads’. These messages did not bode well for our trip to Stanpit Marsh in December but although it was very cold the sun was shining and there was only a light wind so we decided to give it a try. In the event we were not disappointed and we had a pleasant if short walk round the nature reserve.
Stanpit marsh owes its existence to the silt deposited where the two rivers Avon and Stour meet the sea at Christchurch harbour. It is looked over and protected by the bulk of Hengistbury Head but this does not stop the high tides from flooding the marsh. A blackboard at the visitor centre gives the times of high tide although the water is rarely very deep and advice on the use of Wellingtons is normally sufficient to keep the feet dry. The new visitor centre is of a striking design and well worth a look round being packed with information and views over the marshes.
We entered the reserve from the eastern side car park and the number of birds on the marshes was immediately obvious. Redshank, although solitary, were scattered throughout the area searching for food. Other birds are more social in their habits and stick together in groups. The Brent Geese are one such bird that may have travelled hundreds of miles on their migration but stick together in flocks feeding on the meadow. A flock of Dunlin seemed quite content to be on the grassland but are more usually seen at the water’s edge.
Further on a group of Ringed Plovers had gathered on a mud bank and another group of Black tailed godwits were feeding nearby. Curlews sometimes form flocks in the winter and a loose group were seen on the grass but several other single birds roamed over the inlets. We also saw a Snipe moving slowly among the grass tussocks.
Wigeon are another bird that sticks together and they were present in goodly numbers; in pairs as well as flocks. A few Teal, usually in pairs, fed on the water. The Gulls were mostly of the Black headed variety but there was some Herring and Greater black backed gulls scattered about. Other birds such as Coot, Oystercatcher, Heron and Lapwing were observed.
The presence of Little Egret and Avocet give an indication of time as both of these birds would not have been here a few years ago. The Avocets were in a group of three on a mud bank near the water’s edge and are always a pleasure to see. Avocets get their name from the black cap which is reminiscent of the black cap worn by European ‘advocates’ or lawyers. Although not often seen their feet are webbed which enables them to swim but more often they wade in shallow brackish water feeding by moving their upturned bill from side to side.
Meadow Pipits, Pied Wagtail, Starling, and the increasingly rare House Sparrow were present as well as the Bluetits, Greatits and Robins.
The layout of raised paths among the marsh and waterways at Stanpit means that you can get quite close to the birds compared to other reserves. A pair of Teal for instance was seen less than ten metres away in one of the reedbeds and the wandering Redshanks sometimes come close to the paths.
Another advantage of Stanpit is that the area is closely monitored by the Christchurch harbour ornithological society and daily sightings are recorded on their website. This gives us the opportunity of comparing our bird sightings against their more professional tally. We did in fact compare quite well with their record, except for their Grey Plover, but they include very precise number counts of each species. Their record of twenty Snipe is far more than our one or two but they are difficult birds to spot with their camouflaged bodies being close to the ground.
The next outdoor meeting is to Normandy Marsh. Meet at the Oak Road car park Dibden Purlieu at 10am on 17th January 2010. Non members welcome at no charge.
The next indoor meeting is the AGM on 25th January 2010.
Contact the secretary on 023 80893803 for membership details.

Wootton Bridge to Holmsley

We did this walk in early December after the rainiest November since the early nineteen fifties. We knew the ground would be very wet and we would be unlikely to see anything unusual but just walking in the countryside would be a bonus after being confined indoors during the wet weather. The walk was chosen because most of the paths are on gravel or tarmac and raised above the level of the forest floor. At other times of year there are butterflies, interesting flora and birds to be seen but at this time of year even the leaves on the trees have deserted us.
The start of the walk is from the car park at Wootton Bridge near Wilverley and after exiting the car park back on to the road we turn right over the bridge crossing the Avon Water. Immediately after the bridge we turn right into the woods along a gravelled bridleway through a wooden gate. This is a popular horse riding track and we opened the gate to allow two riders through before entering ourselves. Several other riders passed or overtook us during the walk.
It was immediately obvious on entering the woods that a great deal of forestry work had recently taken place. The woods had been thinned by cutting down Scots pine trees. The trunks had been sawn to exactly the same length and arranged in stacks at the side of the track; most of the stacks lying over the drainage ditches. Forestry work seems to do a great deal of damage to the forest floor but it does not take long to recover. An old tractor tyre left by the foresters could take a while longer however.
When we arrived at a fork in the path we took the right hand path because the left hand track tends to retain water although both end up at roughly the same point. During the spring and summer there are interesting plants along the track such as blue and white irises and other bog plants but of course there are none in the winter. Butterflies and some dragonflies are also present. When the trees thin out we emerge on to a shrubby heath and take a minor path which cuts the corner off the bridleway before leaving through a gate on to the busy A35.
Taking care to cross the road we walk to the left and then right between houses down a minor tarmac road which goes to Burley. There is very little traffic on this road and it makes walking easy in wet weather. The road goes down in a dip about halfway along and a stream passes under the road but in wet conditions the stream overflows and creates a ford which was the case when we went along. Fortunately there is a footbridge at the side so we did not get wet. The road emerges from Holmesley inclosure at Holmesley Lodge and goes downhill past a car park to meet up with the dismantled railway which is where we turn right to walk along the track.


The old railway line goes across a bog and bog woodland on a raised embankment which makes access a lot easier during wet periods. Bog woodland is quite rare in England and consists of peaty areas with a high water table and low nutrients which restrict the growth of trees such as silver birch or Scots pine. After walking in a straight line along the old railway line it emerges at Holmesley station. We had our packed lunch sitting on the old platform but during the summer we sit outside at Holmesley tea rooms. The porters or stationmaster tea variations go down well after a walk on a hot sunny day.
After walking past the entrance to the tea rooms we continue up to the main road and cross over to the Wilverley road. Still at the junction and opposite an abandoned car park we walk through the bushes and over a stile into the water meadows. This is the only part of the walk on soft waterlogged ground but by careful choice of paths we can avoid getting our feet wet. The path crosses a footbridge over the Avon water and we head diagonally across the field to a barred gate into the woods. During the summer a walk alongside the Avon water provides one of the finest walks in the forest but is best avoided in wet weather. On entering the forest the path leads uphill on a muddy track to rejoin the path we walked along earlier where we turn left to retrace our path back to the car park.
A highlight of our walk happened as we approached the gate back into the forest when we saw a herd of twenty to thirty fallow deer crossing the track from left to right. As we went through the gate about half of the herd decided they did not like this part of the forest and ran back again to our left.

Waterside Natural History society November indoor meeting

Our indoor meeting held in St Andrews Hall Dibden Purlieu was a talk on the impact of human activities on Hampshire’s coast by Alan Inver. Many of the accompanied slides were taken from a light aircraft over twenty years ago and one of the cruise ship QE2 going between Hirst Spit and the Needles was particularly interesting. It was very informative to compare the coast as it was then to how it is now and to project what may happen in the future.
The area behind the sea wall at Keyhaven is now familiar to all of us as a nature reserve but a contract for gravel extraction preceded the reserve and cancelling the contract would have cost the council millions of pounds in lost revenue. A compromise was reached whereby the contractors contained the water drainage so that the scrapes and lagoons retained their water but gravel extraction went ahead. This has worked satisfactorily so far but the summer of 2009 saw most of the scrapes run dry.
A combination of the battle between English Nature with the local Council and global warming does not bode well. Apparently the inlet up Southampton water is one of the few unblocked estuaries on the south coast and with its gentle slope makes it an ideal place to measure the height of high tide. It goes without saying that the high tide is moving further upriver but I always understood that this was because the land was still sinking. It seems however that nowadays global warming has an effect too.
Many of us were particularly interested in the future of the reclaimed land in Dibden Bay and it was interesting to see a map of the proposals but nothing has been decided yet.Another concern is the future of the salt marshes which have shown dramatic reductions over the years and provide a valuable habitat for wildlife.

Blashford Lakes

Heavy rain and high winds was a feature of the weather in the week up to our visit to Blashford Lakes but because of our influence over the weather, or perhaps just good luck, the winds had died down and the rain managed to stay away for the duration of our visit. Actually Blashford Lakes is a good choice for a visit when the weather is unpredictable because you are never far away from a hide in which to shelter.
We started our walk from the visitor centre where there is a helpful guide showing which birds are currently to be found on the reserve. Unfortunately this can turn out to be a disappointment if you don’t see some of the birds that are mentioned and birds being good fliers have a habit of flying away once seen. This is what happened on our visit as birds like Siskins and Yellow legged Gulls were nowhere to be seen. There was however plenty of birds at the woodland hide on the bird feeders including Nuthatch, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Bluetit, Greatit and Greater spotted Woodpecker as well as a Grey Squirrel collecting discarded food off the floor beneath the feeders.
The second hide we visited overlooked one of the lakes but the sun, which is low in the sky at this time of year, shone directly in to the windows so the birds on the water were reduced to black shapes. The side windows however overlook the reed beds at the edge of the lake and it was through this window that one of our members spotted a Water Rail. This shy nervous relative of the Moorhen is a slate grey colour with a bright red beak and legs and is not often seen in the open. The hides at Blashford Lakes are quite modern and care has been taken to make them as unobtrusive as possible with one way glass fitted in the windows. Unfortunately minimising the sounds has been left to the visitors and when the Water Rail was seen at one side of the hide everyone clumped over the wooden floorboards in their walking boots to have a look. This must have seemed like a herd of elephants to the Water Rail which promptly disappeared in to the reeds. Everyone returned to their places and quiet was restored. The Water Rail, thinking it was a bad dream, emerged in to the open again only for all the people to clump back over to the side of the hide. At this point the water rail gave up and was not seen again.On emerging from the hide it was nice to see a Grey Wagtail bobbing about on the ground looking for food.
After lunch we went across the road to the area around Ibsley water. This is by far the largest expanse of water on the reserve and a total of three hides are provided to see as much of the water as possible. Nevertheless it is difficult to identify some of the distant birds using binoculars and even bird watching scopes do not show all the details. Birds such as Canada geese and Greylag geese though are big enough to identify at great distances and the Little Grebe and Great Crested Grebe do venture close to the hides. We were lucky enough to see a Great Crested Grebe surface with a fish in its mouth less than twenty metres from one of the hides.
The open water and small islands attract a great number of birds at this time of year and this has not gone unnoticed by the raptors. We saw Sparrow hawks swooping low over the water’s edge on at least two occasions. Several Buzzards, which are large enough to be identified, were present on the ground on the far bank of the water. One of them was surrounded by feathers from a recent kill and was joined by another to share the spoils. Raptors are becoming more and more common to the detriment of other birds especially the weak and small species.
We spent a pleasant afternoon walking between the coppiced willow plantations to the other hides and around the smaller lakes. Coppicing is when the stems are cut down to ground level and pollarding is when the stems are cut back to the main trunk. Willows, Sallows or Osiers, have many uses. Two to three tablespoonfuls of powdered willow bark in a litre of boiling water produces a medicine for fevers and cold relief. Powdered willow bark can also be used for rooting new cuttings. The withies can be used for basket weaving, brooms and cricket bats. The flowers in early spring provide some of the first nectar for bees and recently willow plantations have been used as a biofuel for generating electricity. Willow is an all round useful plant.
Blashford Lakes is maturing into a diverse and interesting nature reserve which is well worth a visit; even if you don’t see all the varieties of birds that other people seem to do.