Oare Marshes on a sunny day




It was a beautiful sunny day when I visited Oare Marshes last week and if you count the Starlings there must have been over 5,000 birds around and about, 2,000 of which were made up of Dunlin, Avocets, Golden Plover, Lapwings, Black Tailed Godwits, various Geese and on the not bird scene, beside a few Red Admirals, a Coloured Yellow Butterfly was skipping along the footpath on the sea front.

Clouded Yellow Butterfly in November

Waders at Oare Marshes

Little Egret

Smaller birds included Reed Buntings, Starlings and although I didn’t see them myself, a few Bearded Tits were seen in the Reedbeds alongside the estuary.

   Black Tailed Godwit    Avocets Oare Marshes

Fears for the Estuary future

Announced two weeks ago is a plan to develop the east side of the Estuary for an enormous Solar Panel Farm.
This would stretch from the Marshes right the way through to Seasalter thus stealing precious open land where many birds also reside and feed. Seals often rest on the sands along there as well, seems a great risk to our firendly, important and wonderful native creatures.

Solar Panels Oare Marshes
White = Oare Marshes Nature Reserve – Red = Proposed Solar Farm

Kentish people and beyond have a fine reputation of standing up to land being lost for housing or other developments including Boris’s great plan for an Airport and the destruction of Lodge Hill (see HERE) for housing which is the largest and most important summer residence of Nightingales.

Developers seem to be under the impression that if bird breeding land is taken away, the birds will simply find somewhere else to go, in most circumstances, this is not true. Maybe some of the Planners who often have their home and design studio in a nice Woodland setting should think a bit more about the importance of wildlife, no matter how big, small, feathered or 4 legged they be.

Irony is that the waters around this area have just been designated as ‘important’. Why aren’t they thinking the same about the land which borders them !
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