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APEM Ltd – EAOW Wintering Bird Surveys: Final Report 411732 1 INTRODUCTION


The Deben Estuary is a designated Special Protection Area (SPA), Ramsar site and Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) because of its internationally and nationally important numbers of wintering wildfowl and waders (Holt et al. 2011).


The proposed cable route of the EA ONE wind farm is expected to come ashore in the vicinity of the mouth of the River Deben (Figure 1.1). At least one river crossing is expected with the potential for two crossings. The surveys described here are specifically aimed at recording bird abundance within areas of the River Deben inside the cable landfall and construction corridor, using pre-defined count sectors (where possible) to ensure data are compatible with Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) data collected up to 2009/10 (the most recent dataset at the time of request). This document forms Appendix 24.11 to Volume 3, Chapter 24: Ecology and Orntihology of the Environmental Statement


WeBS is split into two parallel schemes: ‘core counts’, conducted at high tide, designed to enumerate waterbirds at roost sites; and low tide counts, conducted at low water, designed to describe habitat usage of waterbirds in intertidal areas (Holt et al. 2011). In order to meet the objectives of the project, WeBS sectors coinciding with the cable route, or a buffer within which operational activity may exert an influence, were selected (Figure 1.1). Core count sectors were surveyed once a month between October 2011 and March 2012, and low tide sectors were surveyed once a month between November 2011 and February 2012, in line with accepted WeBS methods and survey windows. Areas extending 100 m inland of the estuary were also surveyed, to include birds that were resting or feeding in nearby adjacent locations that could be affected by site operations; birds seen in the area but beyond 100 m from the sector edge were also counted, but excluded from the sector total to ensure consistency with previous datasets. The areas of survey are shown in Figure 1.1. These areas encompass Sectors 1, 5 and 9 (core counts, which were surveyed from October 2011 to March 2012) and BX001, BX002, BX003, BX004, BX005 and BX019 (low tide counts, which were surveyed between November 2011 to February 2012). The area between Sectors 1 and 5 was not surveyed since the proposed cable route and associated operational activity was deemed unlikely to exert an influence in this area.


Two further sectors (‘Cable landfall’ and FF001) do not overlap WeBS sectors, but are designed to encompass cable landfall areas. These sectors were surveyed at high tide and low tide between November 2011 and February 2012. In addition, a sector covering Bawdsey Marshes was added to the survey programme in December 2011 and was surveyed at high tide between December 2011 and February 2012. These three Sectors lie outside the Deben Estuary Special Protection Area (SPA) and Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).


The survey programme and tidal state for each sector is summarized in Table 1.1.


4


October 2012 – Final


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