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factor – going back to the seals, when they are hauled out on the rocks they can be very wary of anyone getting too close to them. Generally speaking, if they lift their heads and take notice of you - you’re too close. But in their element, in the water, where their plump build becomes a super honed and agile swimming machine, they may be inches from your toes without you ever knowing they were there! Estuaries are just fabulously


rich and interesting habitats for wildlife but are most renowned for the bird life that they support. Wrongly in my opinion, as they actually support more fish … but of course, they are more out of sight and hence out of mind. When I first started my estuaries conservation work in South Devon, I came to know the Salcombe-Kingsbridge Estuary best and first – the birdlife there is terrific and particularly in the winter months when the northern migrating birds return to our milder winter climate. With its major river input of


freshwater, the Dart Estuary might be described as being the more properly ‘estuarine’ of the two, so I was expecting even more birdlife there! To suggest that I was disappointed when I explore the Dart Estuary would be belittling but there wasn’t as much as I’d expected from previous estuarine work in Scotland.


Estuaries are complex


ecosystems and there are many variable factors but I am now minded that the Dart’s birdlife is less than it might be because of the disturbance on the river. Not deliberate or malicious disturbance but with its long and relatively narrow form, wildlife will tend to be disturbed up and down the estuary because of boat traffic. I


I have to wonder, that if on a busy days, there may be times when more timid or less tolerant wildlife could be squeezed out of the Dart Estuary?


have to wonder that, if on a busy days, there may be times when more timid or less tolerant wildlife could be squeezed out of the Dart Estuary? Whereas with the multi- creeked ‘dendritic ria’ form of the Salcombe-Kingsbridge Estuary, if wildlife is squeezed out of one creek, there are always other close- by quieter creeks just a short flight away … so far anyway! Even during lock down though, the long reach of our environmental footprint would have been felt within our estuaries. From those of us living within our estuaries’ rainwater catchments, and that has to be the vast majority of us, the washings from our cars and homes as we spring cleaned


everything, any garden cutting or any litter we didn’t dispose of carefully, and although treated - our household waste water’s nutrients and chemicals… all were carried down our local water courses and into our estuaries and coast. Probably not very much from us individually but there’s a lot of us… There is a super easy answer


that is guaranteed to have a major positive impact, we just need to make those little changes to our life style that we really do all already know. Reduce – reduce – upcycle – recycle; only the 4ps down the waste water system; only rain down the outside drains; dispose of waste responsibly; turn lights and engines off … ring any bells? The list is long but none of it hard. They’re not a once and for all big sexy answer that we can all pay into - I’m afraid that’s a mythical pipe-dream. Whatever our drive, doing for our wildlife, ourselves or our common life support system, if we want to see positive changes downstream, we need to do the actions upstream and the more of us that do this, and more of the time, the bigger the changes. Keep your eyes and ears open to those changes and more wildlife sightings… and who is to say that our wildlife doesn’t get up to all sorts of weird and wonderful antics when one of us isn’t there watching?


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