This is the 6th year running that this has taken place, again very kindly led by the Environment Agency who again provided the time and boat to monitor high tide wader roosts within the Inner Thames.
The areas covered, as in previous years, were from Broadness Point, Swanscombe then upriver to Beckton, Galleons Reach.
A four man crew consisted of Peter, Dan, Kat and myself.
This will go down as the coldest one yet, I am pretty conditioned to cold weather having worked outside most of my life, having a good layer of blubber around my waistline helped but I was still bloody freezing.
Travelling along the Thames at 25 knots in sub zero temperatures, sitting in the same position for 4 hours is not ideal, after an hour my feet and hands had disappeared and were completely dead despite multiple layers of clothing.
However the birding as always provided great highlights and kept us all ticking over as we checked the various roosts and collected the data along with a number of photos.
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| Dunlin |
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| Golden Plover |
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| Johnson's Wharf Roost |
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| Fords Dagenham Roost |
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| Grey Plover |
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| Johnson's Wharf Roost |
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| Johnson's Wharf Roost |
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| New Roost |
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| Stone Barges - Turnstone |
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| Stone Ness Point |
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| Single Avocet at West Thurrock, couldn't get closer water to shallow |
The photos help a lot, I can do estimated counts of the various roosts but for accuracy the best way by far is to count the various species later on a photo. Additionally it also turns up species that may be missed first time round, this was illustrated when I found Avocet and Ringed Plover from distant photos.
Results below for this year and comparison data underneath from 2016.
Totals
2017
2016
Curlew
21
16
Redshank
515
554
Lapwing
434
388
Dunlin
1719
1644
Oystercatcher
0
0
Grey Plover
3
3
Black Tailed Godwit
324
252
Turnstone
1
1
Ruff
0
0
Ringed Plover
2
2
Avocet
1
0
Common Sandpiper
2
0
Bar Tailed Godwit
0
1
All looks pretty similar to 2016; Black Tailed Godwit numbers are ok again but Redshank show a slight decline again. However looking back further, it could just be our recent milder winters are not pushing birds up the Thames like it used to when winters were harder.
A new roost was also located between Fords and Ferry Lane.
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| This Harbour Seal followed us for a short while. |
A big thanks again to the Environment Agency.
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