Portishead Salt Marshes

23/03/2025

It was early morning and the sun was transitioning from sunrise red to the colour of the pale daffodils on the grass verge.

It was a cloud free sky with Wales clearly visible across the channel. The mud flats shone a twilight blue, the incoming wavelets a burnt sienna and the puddles of water, left by last night’s tide, were like mirrors. Two curlew called from afar while the redshank, the 16 that I could see, foraged in earnest for worms before the rising tide reclaimed the mud. Where they fed, the mud was left marked with the tell tale signs of multiple beak holes.

20/03/2025

I headed for Battery Point to look for Purple Sandpipers. They weren’t there but a low-level swan fly past made up for the disappointment!

20/03/2025

Wigeon on a flooding salt marsh.

19/03/2025

My senses were in for a treat this morning. First I heard the water rushing across shingle as the tide raced up the beach. I love that sound! Meanwhile the rising sun was busy painting the estuary a wonderful array of colours. The uppermost clouds were dabbed with yellow ochre and those below a moody Payne's grey that bled into the water. Glimpses of forget-me-not blue poked out from behind the clouds as they blew frenetically up the channel. In moments, the dark sea on the horizon was streaked with bands of raw umber while inshore the sea glittered with the yellow ochre tumbling from the clouds.

These moody sunrise colours don't hang around for long but are worth getting up for!

11/03/2025

I should've worn a scarf . . .
. . but as I leant against an ancient boulder, splashed with white and gold lichen, I forgot about the cold wind whipping around my neck. The pleasure of watching a curlew dive its long curved beak deep into the gloopy mud distracted from my discomfort. Its sensitive beak was feeling for crabs and worms as its feathers were ruffled untidily by the breeze.

Close by, a pair of wigeon stood among seaweed-clad rocks. The male looked particularly splendid as the weak and wispy spring sun highlighted his chestnut head.

As I had approached the estuary that morning, raucous but familiar sounds had blown towards me, now I saw the perpetrators . . . a pair of oystercatchers. They too were probing the mud, albeit with shorter, stockier and brighter beaks than the curlew. In normal circumstances their beaks are a vivid red, matching their eyes, but after this morning's foraging they were mostly a less than impressive mud brown.

08/01/2025

A spring sea watch survey is taking place between Porlock and Portishead on March 21 and 23rd. Click on this link to get involved.

Take part in our 2025 Spring synchronised Sea Watch survey, looking out for porpoises, dolphins and other marine megafauna at a Somerset coastal location near you. We aim to have people surveying at every significant headland from Porlock to Portishead! There are two Spring surveys taking place, one...