Saltholme RSPB
It has long been a source of anger for me that the RSPB – which describes its role in the following grand terms:
We protect, restore and manage habitats for birds and other wildlife
has long seen fit to ignore the North East of England (SE Northumberland in particular), leaving us instead to the ravages of rampant development – with all of the obvious implications it has for habitat loss – while bending over backwards to look after the South East.
So while (for example) the county of Kent alone has no less than seven RSPB reserves, (check it out here), until the opening of Saltholme RSPB In Cleveland, there was not a single reserve in all of Northumberland1, Tyne & Wear, Co. Durham, Cleveland or North Yorkshire.
Not one, in this huge chunk of England.
Not because there wasn’t work to do, habitat to save or birds to protect, but because – and I quote a response to a direct question about the apparent north/south divide in RSPB strategy thinking:
The selection of priorities for acquisition is largely governed by their relative importance for key species and habitats in need of conservation action.
In other words they’ve arbitrarily decided that the “relative importance” of habitat in the North East is less than the importance of habitat in the South East.
Which is why the RSPB will never get a penny out of me.
In the interests of balance though, I decided I’d have a look at Saltholme, just to see what £4,000,000 gets you.
Interestingly, bearing in mind the RSPB quote above, Saltholme didn’t need to be “protected” by the RSPB buying in – this whole area of Teesside is already securely established as nationally important habitat, and no “conservation action” by the RSPB was needed.
Funny, that…
It would appear that £4m buys a nice visitor, a couple of decent hides, a kiddie’s play area, and gravel for footpaths. Everything of environmental importance was already there.
Still, there were loads of birds (no thanks to the RSPB): Common Terns drifting in and out in droves carrying Sandeels from the nearby North Sea; Sand Martins, Yellow Wagtails, Greylag Geese, Meadow Pipits, Coots, Mallards, Mute Swans, numerous gulls – all “usual suspects”, but plenty of ‘em.
I imagine that in Winter the place will be great from a birding point of view, even if it was a bit mundane today.
From a photographic point of view, some of the hides are reasonably positioned for the light, and – assuming the birds come in close – there’s some potential, especially if the water in the pools was higher: I didn’t spot anywhere that suggested great chances for waders though, at least with a 400mm lens.
I didn’t exactly fill my boots on the day, I’m afraid.
This juvenile Starling is quite easy on the eye – the background is interesting, you can see the beginning of adult plumage coming through, and thankfully that tuft of grass is behind the bird’s tail!:
Starling
Later on one of the pools, Common Terns like this one would come in quite close while feeding – but the light wasn’t quite right, and I missed the catchlights that would have made all the difference:
Common Tern
Common Tern
My favourite on the day is probably this Greylag Goose fly-by:
Greylag Goose
And I’m including this one as a “nearly” shot: if only the closer, lower, slightly OOF goose had been as sharp as the one above it!
Greylag Goose
So that was Saltholme.
In fairness it was reasonably easy (if time-consuming – three hours each way!) to get to, and – by travelling on public transport – I got in for free.
But the birds and the water would have been there even if the RSPB had spent their £4m on – oh, I don’t know – buying up the land constituting the fourth quarter of Cramlington, land which is currently woodland, ponds and bird-friendly rough grazing farmland, and which is designated to become yet another unwanted fucking housing estate…
I should close by mentioning the restaurant in the visitor centre: I had to ask for a tray on which to carry my meal; I had to ask for some milk to go with my cup of tea; and I had to ask for a fork with which to eat the food I’d bought.
And impressively, they’d managed to prepare a “Spanish Quiche” – which was obviously made with excellent ingredients, and which looked fantastic – in such a way that it had absolutely no flavour whatsoever. If I’d eaten it with my eyes shut I wouldn’t have had a clue what I was eating!
Not too impressed with the catering then…
1 Yeah, there’s Coquet Island, but you can’t actually visit that reserve – it’s really a preserve that you only get to look up at from the deck of a small boat, as landing is prohibited.