A Day in the Life of an Environmental Consultant – Spring 2023

If you’re memory of Spring 2023 was of cold, wet, grey days then take heart from knowing the wet conditions were good news for our breeding waders.

Flooded fields across North Kent resulted in skies full of displaying lapwing and a soundscape of chipping redshank that has not been heard in some places since the 1940’s.

New landowners and management on Grain Marshes resulted in Lapwing successfully breeding for the first time in years, while, closer to Cooling, flocks of ringed plover and black tailed godwits fed on nearby fields at high tide.

Although the wet March was good news for wildlife it spelt misery for sheep and shepherds attempting to lamb in sodden fields. Uncontrolled flooding can be bad news for farm business’s, however,  capturing the winter rainfall in shallow reservoirs and using solar pumps to direct water into rills and scrapes could result in more bonanza years for birds.

This summer I will be working with the RSPB and farmers across the Hoo Peninsula on creating a funding bid that, if successful, could help pay for some of the work needed to make the most of the winter rainfall in years when the heavens don’t open.

High Tide Bishops Ness captured by artist Stephen Turner

Elsewhere our increasingly unpredictable client is creating havoc for breeding birds. Black headed gull colonies, which traditionally have nested on islands in the Swale and Medway, have been flooded out over the last few years by a combination of high spring tides and eroding saltmarsh islands, both caused by climate change and the pressure of coastal squeeze.

I witnessed the trauma of gull nests, eggs and young being submerged on a high spring tide at Bishops Ness on the Medway in 2021. The noise of thousands of gulls loosing their young will remain with me forever. However, gulls are adaptable species and the birds have now taken to breeding inland on flooded marshes. Two colonies have now set up in flooded fields at a farm on Sheppey. Previously this land was a mecca for breeding waders but numbers of fledged young have plummeted since the gulls took up residence.

Black headed gulls impact on waders in two ways. Through Kleptoparasitism (stealing food) and by preying on wader chicks, something I have witnessed on a number of occasions in the last few years. Black headed gulls are an Amber listed species and therefore protected so it is difficult to know how to remedy this situation but it is a example of how climate change is beginning to upset the balance of the natural world in our own back yard.

Towards the end of spring I joined farmers and land managers at Elmley Marshes National Nature Reserve to discuss the possibility of setting up a Farmer Cluster on the Hoo Peninsula. Farming Clusters are farmer led collectives aimed at encouraging people to work together across a landscape for the benefit of wildlife. Gareth Fulton from the Elmley Conservation Trust, a founding member of the Swale Cluster, hosted the day and enthused about the benefits of this scheme.

Farmers and land managers cluster around Gareth Fulton at Elmley Marshes National Nature Reserve

From July my thoughts turn to river restoration work. This year I will be conducting surveys for the Lower Medway Internal Drainage Board and advising on management of watercourses. However it is also fabulous to see that my work with the Upper Medway IDB is beginning to bear fruit.

At the beginning of July I joined the fantastic crew of the Upper Medway Board and North West Kent Partnership officer Mark Gallant for a workshop on the Hammer Stream. The machine operators learnt about some of the ways we can restore natural process’s in rivers. In particular we talked about the benefits of leaving trees in rivers or installing woody debris to influence river flows. Woody debris has a number of benefits from slowing flood waters, to re-creating meanders to providing nursery grounds for fish fry.

During the afternoon the guys got stuck in with a practical lesson in securing logs in the river. Their fabulous enthusiasm and knowledge made the day a pleasure to run and I was delighted to hear they continued with the work the following day and intend to carry out much more of this work over the coming years.

The crew of the Upper Medway Internal Drainage Board install woody debris in the Hammer Stream