Calstock Wetland : A Year On.

 November 2022. It is the first anniversary of the breaching of the river-bank at Calstock. (See Blog for the back story; New Wetlands in the Tamar Valley published 18.11.21.)

After a lot of planning, consultation and delays, the cut in the riverbank was made in Mid-November 2021 allowing water from the river to flow into the low-lying and now derelict meadows behind the levee. At high water on the smaller neap tides, the flooding water only covers a network of interconnecting channels and lagoons. At high water on the bigger spring tides, the whole area is inundated between the banks constructed at each end to protect Calstock at one end and its sewage works at the other end. As the tide turns, the water runs back out to the river, leaving isolated muddy lagoons and islets of marshy vegetation.

The river-bank was breached on November 14th '21. The walk along the levee had been closed for months as the walkway across the cut was not yet complete and for health & safety reasons, the public was not allowed along the levee, much to people's frustration. This picture was taken by someone on the river side of the walkway-to-be, looking inland as the water flowed in from the river.

Following the breach the water is flooding across the old wet meadows. Picture taken looking inland.

Black-headed Gulls were immediately showing interest in the new wetland. The black head - feathers are replaced by grey cheek and ear smudges in winter.

Mallard drake. These ducks, already present along the river, quickly explored the new habitat.

December 1st, 2021. Unable at first to see the new wetland from the riverbank, one could look down from the side of either of the two lanes running parallel to the river, the upper,  Eric Road, or the lower, Harewood Lane which leads from Calstock to the sewage works and on to the old mine site of Okel Tor.

This picture was taken from Eric Lane, looking east to the houses on the Devon side of the Tamar. The water level at mid-tide is a patchwork of open water and the remnants of the old meadow vegetation, predominantly a coarse growth of docks, meadow thistle, rush and tussocky grasses.

At last! Good Friday, April 14th 2022 after endless issues of health & safety were resolved, the walkway was deemed safe and the levee path was officially opened again to the walkers, bird-watchers, strollers, dog walkers and the frankly curious.

Viewing the birds using the wetland is best through binoculars. and better still a telescope. The sun is behind you as you look from this path in the morning, while looking from the side of Harewood Road is less dazzling in the afternoon.

As well as numerous Mallard, Teal can be seen dabbling in the muddy margins of the pools.

Last winter there were brief sightings of Shoveller and Pintail ducks too.

       Moorhens fuss from among the rushes.

and if you are lucky you may spot a Water Rail moving furtively from one clump of vegetation to another.

The walkway bridge striding across the breach in the riverbank. The river is to the right

Plenty of warning notices to read!  The river is to the right of the picture.

Even before the breach was made in the riverbank, the shallow scoops excavated in the wet meadow area destined to be flooded, attracted a few waders. Common Snipe could be seen.

Also to see are a few bobbing  Sandpipers. Common Sandpipers as well as the less common Green Sandpiper shown here, its distinctive square white rump very obvious when it flies.

Grey Herons have come into the wetland from their usual haunts along the riverbank.

Joined by their smaller but more conspicuous cousin, the Little Egret.

Jewel-like Kingfisher waits for a little fish, while small birds such as Pied and Grey Wagtails, hunt for insects on the muddy shores of the mosaic of lagoons exposed as the water flows back to the river when the tide is ebbing.

 Meanwhile a Stonechat can often be seen doing his hunting from a post or other vantage point.

The strip of reeds fringing the riverbank attract Sedge and Reed Warblers in the summer, and the path along the top of the levee continues to be a good fly-line and basking place for Darter dragonflies as summer advances.

By late April 2022, considerable erosion was developing in the breached riverbank.

And again, at the end of October 2022.

While at the same time, looking towards the flooded wetland from the walkway bridge at low water, the remains of old field drainage can be seen becoming exposed by the eroding mud and silt.

The top of a high spring tide a week later, looking towards Calstock from the end of the bridge over the breach.

Numbers of our old friend, Canada Geese appeared like bad pennies. The first year in the life of this welcome new wetland has been very interesting to watch. The numbers and variety of wetland birds to find this area is rewarding, and the gradual changes in vegetation, from coarse degraded grassland to a flora more adapted to brackish or even salty conditions will also be interesting to see. It has considerably enriched the value of the riverside walk for all who travel it.

 One of the reasons given for the creation of this wetland is to prevent flooding of Calstock downstream. However, so far, conditions haven't put this to the test.

AUTUMN WALKS

 AUTUMN WALKS

One of the glories of the British climate is that no weather pattern stays the same for long, however persistent a drought may seem, or however entrenched those searing east winds. And interspersing our usual changeable pattern, or a spell of what seems like unrelenting rain, we can get a perfect day of idyllic weather, typical of our dearest dream of the season as we think it should be. Or, indeed, within the chill grip of winter, we can get a couple of balmy spring-like days, giving a short respite and a promise of better things to come.

So, from my notes…September,2021..... a perfect autumn morning. Deep silence, no wind, cumulus beginning to build up in the clear blue sky above the marshes. Canada Geese floating peacefully; Mallard and Teal sailing placidly; none of the feverish activity of spring when they rush and bustle after each other. Throaty purr of Moorhen in the reeds; Herons anchored in the wet meadows beyond.

A couple of Swallows flit past, then suddenly there are about fifty dipping and skimming over the water; mostly House Martins now. Tony thinks he sees Sand Martins among them. And as quickly, they are gone.

As we sit, the cloud is increasing and a little breeze is ruffling the water and swaying the rushes. Was that the signal for the Curlews who had been standing motionless, knee-deep at the edge of the pool, to get up with brief bubbling calls and head off towards the sandbanks of the estuary, now exposed by the falling tide.

A Dabchick with round fluffy stern, potters alongside the reedy margin. He isn’t bothering to dive just now, unlike the Cormorant fishing intently in the further pool, under water more than above. Perhaps he’s having to look long and hard for little fish.

This October……...this year 2022 is marked by a prolific fruit crop. Apples are so abundant you can’t give 'em away.

Acorns, so conspicuously missing last year, are abundant again. 

The Hawthorns are red with haws;

 Orange bunches of Rowan berries, usually the first autumn fruit to be scoffed, are still on the trees, such is the abundance the birds can’t keep up with them all. Thick clusters of Blackberries are rotting on the brambles, their ferment attracting the late wasps now they have just about finished feeding on the Ivy flowers.

(As I write this, now in early November, we have been visited by large numbers of Redwings and Fieldfares and they have stripped the Rowan berries. Have these birds been driven on by bad weather in Scandinavia or driven onto our shores by a poor fruit crop at home?)

STOP PRESS!  I have just seen a BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) report of huge numbers of Fieldfares and Redwings flying in from Scandinavia borne in on Easterly winds following a complete failure of the Rowan berry crop in Scandinavia, as I had wondered above.

Red Admirals, stupified by late nectar and warm sun, bask in sheltered spots.

Sloes with their blue bloom unmarked by autumn's wear and tear; the remains of ripe Elderberries, trusses of black wild Privet berries all wait their turn to be eaten. 

Shiny Guelder Rose have all but gone now,

And the plump heads of Arum berries, succulent-looking but poisonous, are beginning to subside in the hedge bottoms.

 

Trails of Black Bryony berries drape the hedges,

And Yew berries, beloved by early Redwings, complete the trinity of berries poisonous to the unwary.

Talking of red I couldn't resist this Fly Agaric! Poisonous to us, this toadstool, often growing under Birch trees, is eaten by deer, rabbits, slugs.....

Red isn't the only warning colour. Black Elderberries are edible and make good wine, but the black of wild Privet berries is a 'no no', and conversely not all red berries are poisonous! 

FORAGERS BEWARE!

Rosehips seem to wait for the winter weather to shrivel and perhaps sweeten them like Medlars, before they are palatable. The ragged remains of Hazel nuts, long-since demolished by the squirrels still litter the ground under their bushes and the still-green Ivy berries will take several more months to blacken and feed the winter-hungry birds.

Surreptitiously, Squirrels, Jays, Voles and mice will have hidden caches of harvest stored safely underground and in nooks in the hedge-bottoms to sustain them through the hungry times.

October Walk: Plymouth.

A perfect autumn day as we walked through the outskirts of Plymouth on our way to watch youngest grandson play Rugby. The trudge to the Rugby pitch was enlivened by the varied displays in the front gardens as we passed by, under a clear blue sky and bright sunshine.

. Michaelmas Daisies, in shades from palest mauve to rich purple were a-buzz with hoverflies and hive bees. Late Fuchsia flowers glowed carmine and the first of the curly-petalled Guernsey Lilies, well-suited by this summer’s hot dry bake were a clear pink against a backdrop of sombre-leaved evergreen shrubs. 

Tall Japanese Anemones with a handsome golden boss of stamens attracts more autumn-flying insects .

and now my season’s favourite, Cyclamens are unfolding their donkeys'-ear petals. I was given my first by an old friend who had no end of them, coming up in the mulched path between his collection of Camellias. He just shovelled up the corm and I put it in my garden under an Amelanchier. It has spread in places, much more successfully when the seeds are distributed by ants, than my efforts to move young corms.

The front wall of one garden was hidden by a small-leaved Cotoneaster with herringbone branches covered by orange-red berries glowing in the sun.

.A Sumach spread its wide canopy across another garden, it’s handsome pinnate leaves beginning to turn amber, a promise of its full glory after a few chilly nights.

Beyond the last garden the overgrown hedge was draped with an almost tropical abundance of sprawling Wild Clematis. Its silvery silky seeds give it the country name of Old Man's Beard.

Autumn Walk, one early November day.(last year)

As often happens, when we go for our first short autumn walk up on the edge of the moor above Trebartha, we are chased off by the weather.

So far we haven’t seen any of the winter thrushes in the hedges around here but will often see them in the in-by pastures and the hawthorns dotting the moorland slopes. We went in search and chose a morning of patchy blue among the clouds, following the rain and wind of the past couple of days. Parking in our usual gateway we at once spotted a fox making his way round a corner of bracken towards the woodland of Trebartha below. His coat shone brighter than the rain-soaked dark russet of the dying bracken.

The Eskimos are said to have dozens of words describing snow. We too have many describing the browns of autumn: amber, gold, bronze, russet, foxy, umber, chestnut, copper, hazel, henna, rust, nut, tawny, titian, brick, cinnamon, ginger, mahogany, sepia, toast, auburn, terracotta, sienna, tan....

How will you describe this autumn-coloured Norway Maple?

We can distinguish the tree by its own shade of autumn leaf colour; even the autumn-emerging moths in their multitude of camouflage will show the season’s shades.

Going up the lane towards the moor, water gushes off the fields and issues from every orifice in the banks to join the overflowing gutters and we play our childish game of clearing the masses of dead leaves which clog the grids over the culverts and enjoy the rush of released water.

The patches of blue sky begin to close as we negotiate the cattle grid and walk up onto the moor. The last in-by pasture was dotted with birds; mixed gulls and corvids and a whirling flock of starlings but they were almost the last birds we saw. Tony thought he had the merest glimpse of a woodcock swiftly rising from the bracken beside him before flitting out of sight.

Rain was soon spitting in our faces as we walked into the chilly NW breeze. Crimson and orange wax-caps studded the close-bitten turf and haws still covered their lichen-bearded trees. A lone blackbird chacked in alarm as we flushed it from a gorse bush but nothing else stirred.

We crested the rise, now in steady fine rain and the moor ahead was blotted out by an unrelenting pall of low cloud. The horizon from the north right round to the west was lined by horizontal bands of rain cloud of dark blue-slate shading through greys to a silvery shimmer.

Time to leave, rejected once more by the fickle weather.

This November, the same walk was so different  --  blue and white sky, clear light, and the Hawthorn bushes on the moorland edge were alive with Fieldfares. (see note above about the failure of the Scandinavian berry crop)

 Ravens were croking harshly as they flew along the ridge of moorland up to our right. Two of them were putting on a prolonged display of synchronized flight, lilting and swooping, then spiralling round each other as they dropped rapidly for many feet.Were they renewing their marriage vows?

.

Wonwell; a long family connection.

It can’t be often that a bit of coast in South Devon can be claimed to stay unchanged over seventy years. Tony’s family and now ours, have known and loved this place for four generations, since the 1950s. The access is still down a narrow lane; there are still no ice-cream vans, no Private notices, no 'No Camping or Overnight Stopping' notices, and there are still few people there especially during the weekdays.

When we returned to live in Cornwall in 1969 we rather hesitatingly went back, fully expecting it to have been ‘discovered’ since we last knew it in 1962. But no, nothing had changed from the 1950s, and our son and his family visit from Plymouth now in the 2020s, and STILL no appreciable change except for more cars squeezed along the sides of the approach road at weekends.

For obvious reasons, I’m not now going to tell you where it is, except to say it is the estuary of a small river running down to the sea through the lush pastures and shady woods of the South Hams and originating on Dartmoor. At Low Water, an extensive area of flat golden sand is exposed and as the tide comes in over the sun-warmed rippled bed, It is an idyllic place to swim in the summer.

Looking up the estuary.1956

Looking across the estuary from above Wonwell.1956 The sea is on the left.

Quiet little coves, rock pools at the base of the low cliffs, offer opportunities for picnics, collecting winkles, family cricket matches or plain idling. Tony's Dad and his brothers knew this stretch of coast when they lived in Plymouth in the early 1950s; then his Mum was introduced to the area for holidays;and the wider family of Atkinson aunts uncles and cousins had many a picnic and day-long gatherings there when Tony and his brother were young boys.

During holidays, somehow Tony got to know the folk in the farm just up the road from Wonwell. This  was Farmer Rogers from Torrdown Farm. He used to fish in his leisure time and these visits surely were the root of Tony's dream of farming and fishing when he grew up  --  a dream he realized when we went to live on Bardsey some years later.

My involvement with Wonwell came when Tony and I were at Seale-Hayne near Newton Abbot and Tony took me to meet his parents who were staying in the pub in Kingston, the village near Wonwell, and of course we went to Wonwell. This was in the mid -1950s and we made several trips there on his motorbike while still at college.

Meanwhile Tony's brother Mick, then working as a boatbuilder for Mashfords in Cremyll, had made himself a ‘camp’, a hideaway among the Brambles above the little cove favoured by the older Atkinsons.

This camp was in a hollow, covered by a sheet of tarpaulin and reached through a narrow brambly path. Fresh water was from a small stream a little way up the valley. The access along the beach from the slipway was blocked by the high tide, so then there was a bit of a slog along a narrow path running from the lane though a wooded slope to a couple of meadows and then the estuary coast and the cove a little way below a low cliff and looking south across the river mouth to the open sea.

Old postcard picture of local fishermen at Wonwell.

Invariably in those days, any locals or visitors only went down from the slipway at the end of the lane and restricted their activities to the beach there or a little way up-stream. They never seemed to venture much downstream, and of course the tide restricted them for some hours every day.

Tony and I had an ill-begotten visit after College, just before he went in the army on National Service. We hitch-hiked down to Plymouth from his home in Saltford between Bristol and Bath. We were to pick up some camping gear from his Aunt in Plymouth to augment Mick's camping gear, but as we got down from our last lorry lift, Tony confessed he didn't know his Aunt's address. We tried phoning Mick in his digs but he was out for the evening and his landlady didn't know where. We spent an uncomforatble chilly night sleeping under a hedge on the outskirts of Plymouth. Next morning we rang Mick successfully this time, got the Aunt's address and picked up the gear. I cannot remember for the life of me how we trekked around Plymouth, nor how we got the camping gear to Wonwell some 20 miles away. Bus I suppose.

Anyway the camp started well. We had a fishing trip with Farmer Rogers, using a seine net to catch Mullet, a couple of which we were given. Tony still quotes this as one of his most memorable meals : mullet, coated in breadcrumbs and chopped wild marjoram, grilled over our camp fire. From there, things went downhill. A gale developed in the middle of the night and it blew ferociously. Our little tent collapsed, the rain poured in and we spent the rest of an endless night wrapped up in Mick's tarpaulin trying to grab hold of anything moveable. It was still blowing hard the next morning. The estuary was a white welter of foam and the sea crashed up to the base of the cliff below us all day.

Somehow we patched up the camp and stayed another day or two. When we got back to Tony's home in Somerset we heard that the tall ship Pamir had been lost with almost all hands off the Azores in that same storm. She had over 60 young German trainees aboard, and twenty two crew. Only to survived. She was carrying a cargo of grain from Buenos Ayres to Britain.

The Pamir. She was the last sailing cargo ship to round Cape Horn  in 1949. She was carrying grain from Australia to Falmouth.

A few years elapsed before we went back to Wonwell and camped in 1962, this time with a four-month old baby and a dog.

Wonwell, summer 1962

This visit we had the added fun of the use of a big canoe Mick had made and left for us to use.

Mick surfing with the canoe 1962

This camp had another dramatic end. When we broke camp, Mick took the canoe back to Plymouth for modifications. He set off for Plymouth but as we were about to leave a bit later, someone came running up to us to say that he'd been watching Mick paddle out of the estuary and he disappeared. He was afraid he'd capsized so he'd called the coastguard. We drove to Mothecombe on the other side of the estuary, left The baby Kim and the dog in the car with the windows open, and had a hot, exhausting and alarming race along the coast in the Plymouth direction, searching the sea. We got to Bantham along the coast and asked people on the beach if they'd seen a canoe heading west along the coast there, and, miraculously, a man told us yes, a chap in a canoe had come ashore, scrounged a light for his cigarette and gone on his way!

Much relieved, we went back to the car, to find that concerned people were considering calling the police about our 'abandoned baby and dog'!

Back at Plymouth we found Mick at home eating his tea with his family. It turned out that he'd cut through a channel in the rocks off the estuary for a short-cut. Hence his apparent disappearance. And later he met the lifeboat coming out of Plymouth. They told him they were looking for a  missing canoe with two men on board. They'd been given the wrong message. In fact they should have been looking for a two-man canoe with ONE man!

Following our life on Bardsey we came to live in east Cornwall and resumed our visits to Wonwell.

The canoe still in use in 1972. Kim, Angus and Tony off Wonwell slipway.

The estuary opening to the sea. Painted by Angus aged about ten.

Just along the coast to the east is a small cove, Fernycombe. A narrow, steep fishermen's path goes down through prickly waist-high blackthorn scrub, but it's reached more easily from the sea if you have the means.

In 1972 we had a day here; Kim and I walked with the dog and Ang and Tony canoed. Bridget was very glad to see the family re-united!

Someone had been here before us and made these shelters.

1972.

1972, Kim at Fernycombe.

This summer (2022) our grandson jacek, now 21 canoed here with a friend, and camped. The family tradition continues!

More fun: wet suits and diving. 1977.

Wonwell picnics.

1973

                                                                                            1983  

After Angus and family moved to Plymouth, they too spend time at Wonwell, bringing their own interests and ideas. 

It's easier to get to the opposite side of the estuary, at Mothecombe, from Plymouth. This is 2013, with Angus' wife Katrin and their sons Jacek (left) and Brendan (right.)

You can paddle across the river to Wonwell from here at low water but beware! Wear shoes. Weaver Fish hide among the stones in the river bed and if trodden on, the spine in the fishes' back gives a nasty sting. Mick said once that he'd have cut his foot off if he could. And Katrin was stung once. They treated it with piping hot water out of their Thermos.

The Weaver Fish hides in the sandy or stony shallow  water. There is a poisonous spine in the black dorsal fin. It is about10 inches long.

Family picnic July 2013 in a small bay just to the west of the estuary mouth. A bit of a trek from Mothecombe with all the gear including Angie's inflatable canoe. Kim leading Brennie and Angus out to sea!

A few years before this, some archaeologists had a dig at the head of the beach and found traces of an ancient trading settlement. I have a memory problem with this. I had written a story about a Dark Ages village up on Bodmin Moor, and in it the boy hero of my story had been captured in a Viking raid and taken to the coast here to be sold as a slave on the Continent. When writing a story I find my facts and fiction get stirred like a Raspberry Ripple and now I can't remember much about the dig!

2018. Brennie up the creek but still with the paddles!

                            His exploration up the river from the slipway.

The latest addition to the family connection with Wonwell is the acquisition of a paddleboard which adds to the exploration of the river and estuary, but alas! no pictures yet. Tony and I haven't been back 'since Covid.' Maybe next year?