The shifting headlands of cockle shells at Shellness provides shelter to a huge saltmarsh and these are some of the wildest and most natural coastal habitats in Kent since there is no sea wall to keep the tidal waters in check. At high tide, the sea almost covers the entire headland but just stops short…
Tag: Shellness
Spoonbills and sandwiches
August 30th At Shellness, the flocks of waders and waterfowl are enjoying the easy pace of the balmy summer. Swallows move along the beach in small flocks; a wheatear forages on the shingle. There is a late summer silence at high tide mainly because the Brent geese have not arrived. Sandwich terns are roosting…
Shellness again…
The tide is forecast high again at 1:30pm and at 10:00am the waters are well up with just a fringe of mud and bays half-filled. The wind is from the north and the blockhouse provides shelter and a view of the shore. The oystercatchers are already neatly regimented on the ness and Brent geese slowly…
The unstoppable sea
On Saturday, the day is warm with a southerly breeze and the oystercatchers gather on their familiar stretch of shoreline at the far end of the ness of shells that gives the place its name. Another spit near the blockhouse is filled with a tight knit flock of grey plover, dunlin and knot. On the…
A birthday card
For Katie on your XXX
Mid winter sun
January is dark and dismal; on rare days the sun shines and the coastline is transformed by a palette of powder blue, dark purples and gravel browns. At Shellness, the sea is calm and the views distant, but the tide is out on the full and the geese, waders and gulls dispersed and quiet.
Moving with the Tide
At dawn, the tide is out and the birds are dispersed across the wide mudflats that stretch north from Shellness past Leysdown-on-Sea to Warden Point. This is some 5 square kilometres of sands filled with worms and molluscs. There are perhaps a 1,000 birds out there; mostly black-headed gulls, oystercatchers and black-tailed godwits with smaller…
East is East…Shellness and Sheerness
From the sea wall on the Isle of Grain, the Port of Sheerness is an unbroken strip of trade and industry between the gun metal Medway and the brilliant blue sky. The Grain Tower, once the principal defence for the Medway ports, squats in the shallow estuary like an old, broken barrel. The high tide takes it…
Early Winter Snows
The wind drives the Swale into a muddy broth. Small flocks of Brent geese career down the coast on the wind and then turn and hang before alighting on the barren shore. Oystercatchers flock on the tideline with curlews, redshanks, grey plovers and a handful of turnstones. There has been a recent passage of scoters and…
Shellness and Leysdown-on-Sea
The wind tears the waters of the Swale into waves. The grey plovers do not linger on the drowning groynes. The high tide roost of oystercatchers and others shelter on the tip of the shell beach. High tide roost mainly of oystercatchers on the ness. A male hen harrier twists over the wide saltmarsh carried…