More bad seabird news due to the recent storms

Sea birds have not coped with the rough weather 

I have received this note from a birder on Jersey who is justifiably concerned over the number of dead birds that he is picking up on the island's coastline.

"We've picked up over 850 birds in Jersey so far. Mostly razorbills but lots of other species including 10 great northern divers, red-necked grebe, little auk, Mediterranean gull and skylark. Rings are from further north except for shags which are local. If you were planning to visit the Channel Islands to see sea birds this year, you might want to watch the news! Alderney’s gannets do look OK though, but we wait with dread to see how the numbers of puffins and shags will look this year on their breeding grounds".

I will try and keep you up-dated once the breeding season gets under way.

For many, the floods seem to just go on and on.

Water is still pouring off the land

We know that the Somerset levels are still badly affected from the floods, but so are many other places across the country too. I took this photo today of the closed A32 south of Alton in Hampshire, and as you can see the water is still pouring off of the fields onto the road.

The flood water has also completely inundated this farm yard nearby, rendering it totally unusable for some time to come.

Although we are not hearing as much about the floods on the news anymore, for many it is going to be a long old haul back to any sort of normality.

Many farmyards are still completely flooded

Ironically, plans are already in place to sort out the flooding issues on the Somerset levels.

Flooding in the Somerset levels

A plan for future management of the flood-stricken Somerset Levels has been drawn up by a task force addressing the region’s water problems.

Dubbed a ‘vision’ of what the Somerset Levels and Moors might look like in 2030, the task force's plan embraces the area’s flood management head-on, as politicians have demanded short-term responses to the current crisis.

The task force was actually set up last year to find ways of guiding water and land management policies over the years ahead, and included representatives of farming, conservation, local authorities and government agencies.  DEFRA’s excellent environment minister at the time, Richard Benyon, created the task force in the wake of the floods of 2012-13, which also coincided with the ending of many of the conservation agreements that had protected the area for the last 28 years. It should provide a long-term plan which will eventually control and hopefully prevent such disastrous flooding in future.

The floodplains will be managed to accommodate winter flooding – widely recognised as part of the special character of the Levels – while reducing flood risk elsewhere. The frequency and duration of severe flooding, and hence flood risk to homes, businesses and roads, will be reduced. During the summer there will be an adequate supply of irrigation water for farmers and wildlife in the wetlands. On the low-lying peat moors, water levels will be adopted to conserve the soils and avoid the loss of carbon to the atmosphere. Water quality will be improved and meet all EU requirements. Unsustainable farming practices will be adapted or replaced to secure a robust, sustainable base to the local economy.

A spokesman said “The really encouraging thing is the degree of consensus which the vision represents. We all want the Levels’ landscape to remain the green grid-iron of withies (barriers made of osier branches), rhynes (drainage ditches), meadows and droves (herds of cattle) that we know and love. We all want it to continue to be farmed productively, but in ways that enhance the nature conservation interest. We all want the water to be managed so that the flood risk is reduced. We all want an even richer mix of wildlife than we've got already, and we all want a thriving local economy built around the Levels’ special qualities”.

“For the first time, all of the organisations and interests in the Levels and Moors are speaking with a single voice in saying 'this is how we want the area to be'.  The action plan to deal with flooding gives us a priceless opportunity to get things right for the Levels, its people, its farmers and its wildlife.” 

Let’s hope this is the case. Time will tell.

Sea surge savages the sea shore and much more besides.

Many hectares of farmland were inundated by the sea

As we all probably know, the worst tidal surge in 60 years occurred between the 5^th and 7^th of December 2013. Flooding and coastal erosion occurred down the east coast of England from Northumberland to Kent and along the north coast of Wales. In some places the waters rose even higher than those seen during the devastating floods of January 1953 (when 307 people lost their lives in England) and the Thames Barrier recorded the highest tide since its construction in 1984.

Although Government officials said that improved flood defences had generally held up well and obviously, when compared to 1953 they did, that was however not always the case. Seven cliff-top homes collapsed into the sea at Hemsby in Norfolk, where a lifeboat station was also washed away. The Environment Agency reported that the surge resulted in the flooding of around 1,400 properties, with 18,000 people evacuated and 232 Flood Warnings and 71 severe flood warnings issued.

Official estimates have not yet been provided for the area of agricultural land flooded, however it is thought to be in excess of 2,000 ha. Meanwhile a chicken farm on the outskirts of South Ferriby, a village in North Lincolnshire on the banks of the Humber estuary, confirmed that they had lost 700,000 chickens to drowning, when the farm was inundated by flood water.

Also, many nature reserves and coastal habitats have been badly affected such as at the RSPB Snettisham reserve in Norfolk, where the shingle beach had been completely stripped away and the two gravel pits, once separated by a causeway footpath, have been topped up with millions of gallons of seawater creating one massive lake.

Bird hides too have been badly affected at Snettisham, one having been shifted through 180 degrees and now tilts at a 45 degree angle, while another has completely disappeared! Meanwhile literally hundreds of seal pups, which are born at this time of year, were killed by the surge, leaving many beaches dotted with their small dead white corpses.

So, the aftermath of this particular storm will take a long time to recover from in many areas and it is once again a reminder to us all that, however powerful we think we are, nature still often has the upper hand if it chooses.