点评:Mild December day, a walk around the reserve. Got out of the car at the gate (Main car park closed) and headed west down a track heading toward Pitsea which thankfully skirts around the perimeter of the reserve in a big loop of about 4.2 miles. As a youth I was a bit of a bird watcher, so still have an interest in birds especially waders, ducks and water birds. Didn't see a great deal it was 3pm, so the birds would have all been subjected to disturbance all day, the best time of day would probably be sunrise before anyone else gets there? The other factor may have been that it would have been low tide. Low tide was at 18.00 hrs, so a lot of what I would like to have seen were probably out on the mudflats?
What was good to see was a couple of hundred Lapwing which I'm aware are becoming increasingly rarer. Other than that Shelduck, Wigeon, Tufted duck, Mallard, Little Egret, Great Crested Grebe, Coot. Walking was fine most of the root gravelled path. Sign posting in some areas a bit vague. Some of the signage relating to restrictions for dogs seemed to have been vandalised. We walked a stretch of track that at the start had nothing to indicate it wasn't an authorised path and then when we exited there was a damaged sign with 'No Entry', wasn't sure if that was a blanket no-entry or a no-entry for dogs as it did pass rather close to some pools occupied by birds. Marshes are not everyone's cup of tea, they're a bit bleak and uniform, but they're important in the greater scheme of things - bio diversity, so it's good to see reed beds which are increasingly rare these days.
翻译:温和的十二月天,在保护区周围散步。在门口下车(主停车场关闭),向西沿着一条通往皮特西的小路行驶,幸运的是,这条小路绕着保护区的边缘绕了大约 4.2 英里。年轻时我有点喜欢观鸟,所以仍然对鸟类感兴趣,尤其是涉禽、鸭子和水鸟。当时是下午 3 点,没有看到太多,所以鸟儿一整天都会受到干扰,一天中最好的时间可能是日出之前,在其他人到达之前?另一个因素可能是当时是退潮。退潮时间是 18:00,所以我想看到的很多东西可能都在泥滩上?
值得一看的是几百只田凫,我知道它们越来越稀有。除此之外,还有赤嘴鸭、赤颈鸭、凤头鸭、绿头鸭、小白鹭、凤头鸊鷉、骨顶鸡。大部分铺满树根的碎石路都很好走。有些地方的路标有点模糊。一些与限制狗通行有关的标志似乎被破坏了。我们走了一段路,一开始没有任何迹象表明这不是一条授权道路,然后当我们离开时,发现一个损坏的标志,上面写着“禁止入内”,不确定那是全面禁止入内还是禁止狗入内,因为它确实经过了一些鸟儿栖息的水池附近。沼泽并不是每个人都喜欢的,它们有点荒凉和千篇一律,但它们在更大的生物多样性的框架中很重要,所以很高兴看到如今越来越稀有的芦苇床。