Excluding Christmas at Steart

 

Last weekend in a serious attempt to avoid the Christmas melee in town centres, Mrs Wessex-Reiver and I opted instead for some nature inspired walking led spirituality. For this, our chosen destination was the fairly recently opened Steart Marshes abutting the internationally important Bridgwater Bay. In September 2014 the sea wall was breached here and since then this landscape has gradually changed from farmland to estuarine grazing and extensive wetlands.  Only at the very highest tides does the whole landscape flood with the incoming water, however for the rest of the time it is a magnate for water and wildfowl in particular making use of the various new wet areas that have been created.

I used to occasionally come here well before the creation of this super-reserve was conceived.  Then you'd simply park on the roadside and having wandered down to the beach scan Bridgwater Bay for passing birds, or turning 180 degrees observe the fields for the more typical farmland species such as skylark, linnet and of course corvids. It is a site that is best visited at high tide.

It is also an odd place to get to from our humble abode. If I wandered out from the house and over the fields to Sand Point I can see it, about 10 miles away as the curlew flies, but by car, it is a 45 minute drive south down the M5, passing Steart when we're level at Burnham-on-Sea then at Bridgwater we do a loop to Cannington before heading back north until we reach the carpark.  And that is what I like about headland landscapes jutting into the sea, they take on an other-worldliness I find fascinating, bit by bit as the road narrows towards the inevitable dead end the sense of isolation grows. 

What I also find fascinating about Steart is I never see any birds here. Of course I do notice the robins by the carpark, the skylarks, meadow pipit and linnet on the banks, I hear the Cetti's warbler and curlew, and observe a passing mallard or egret, but I never seem to be here when large numbers of birds are visible. Mostly this is down to operator error as I only seem to be able to visit when the tides are ebbing or low. We did once come here for high tide, and after waiting for the appointed hour, absolutely nothing happened other than Mrs Wessex-Reiver sketching some reeds around a hawthorn to pass the time.

However it is also the sheer scale of the place which makes it troublesome for the casual observer. As Britain's third largest super nature reserve covering some 6,140ha none of the reserve, other than the perimeter path, has public access. Viewing is from raised screens off these perimeter paths or from a few hides overlooking lagoons, but in essence the birdlife is buried deep within the vegetation. And for me that is vital. If this is to be an internationally important reserve for species like curlew, then what it doesn't need are legions for day-tripping tourists wandering aimlessly about disturbing everything. Observing from half a kilometre away is near enough.

It was why on this Saturday, as we went simply for a walk, I didn't even take my binoculars. Though I wish I'd taken my proper camera as the static weather was producing some astonishing cloud formations. These were dark non-rain-bearing clouds moving very slowly in the near still air, it suggested a menacing feel to them which in a way matched the bleak flat landscape on this December day. As someone commented on my earlier Facebook post at the time, from the images I took they were expecting Magwitch to appear from the mud and ask for a pork pie. I like this type of landscape, and at Steart it is made all the more austere given only a couple of kilometres away rising from the swamps is the construction site of Hinkley Point C Nuclear Reactor looming like a giants gravestone dominating the horizon.

In 2009, for work, I spent a week at Dungeness recording sounds and sights of the shifting gravels of that part of Kent. I stayed in the Bird Observatory observing their work as well as capturing some of the sounds of this unique landscape for the Natural History Unit's sound library. During the day there was a constant hum from the Dungeness Nuclear Reactor, greatly enhanced at night by an orange glow, a glow so bright that we could walk about without torches. Such a fascinating experience to be there, but I'd not wish to live there. The same with Steart, it is beautiful in an austere way, but I could imagine it would take a certain mindset to wish to live here.    

Steart isn't quite as bleak as Dungeness, it reminds me more of being near the Wash in East Anglia. These flat landscapes, with their far reaching views, are creatively inspiring which today meant I had an inkling to take black and white photographs to reflect the mood well suited to this half-light near monochrome world we found ourselves walking through.

Quantock Hills to the left and Hinkley Point C to the right on the horizon. The latter is much closer in real life.

Light bursting through the thick cloud over the reserve. This happened frequently and provided some stunning eruptions of brightness in the half light of this December's day.

Which way now, winter route, or summer route?

Eventually after about 3 kilometres we arrived at The Breach viewing platform. During the highest tides the Bristol Channel rushes into this landscape, swallowing up the pools and water filled ditches and in doing so flushes waterfowl and waders to higher ground. That said from chatting to WWT staff here previously nothing is ever guaranteed, as we found last year sitting waiting for something to happen. Even if the sea does come in through the breach, how far it travels depends on the weather, pressure and windspeed. It will be nice to witness a full avian spectacle here one day.

But for today we were simply happy with the walk and a ten minute rest before the 3 kilometres walk back to the car, after a refreshment too of course. By the time we returned it was 2.30pm and starting to get dark, these dark days before Christmas really are short. Despite pretty much walking continuously we did observe some interesting birds along the way, a number of curlews calling, as were the redshank, Cetti's warbler and interestingly great tit with their 'teacher teacher' call. At some distance a skein of geese flew along the river. An obliging kestrel hovered over the path as we walked underneath him, a sizeable number of little and great white egret, mute swans, grey heron, coot, mallard everywhere, and a single little grebe yaffling away, but there would have been a lot more out there if I'd sat longer (and had a scope). 

By the farm on the way back, and around one field only, the hedgerows and trees were covered in starlings, noisy black snow chattering away to themselves ahead of going to their roost. As I watched them I'd failed to notice about the same number of starling in the grassland who suddenly lifted en-masse and flopped lazily over into the next field. Another good day then of not setting out to observe anything but just enveloping ourselves in the landscape for a few hours and we didn't see more than a half dozen people during this three hour visit. I just need to return when there is a high tide I feel.