2004 Oare Marsh Faversham 3rd October One Day Meeting
Eric Philp vice county recorder, and myself were asked to do a beginners one day meeting on Salicomia in Kent. A very brief history of the marsh and surrounding area follows before I cover the meeting itself.
Oare Marsh was reclaimed from the sea by the Normans to provide grazing for sheep, prior to this it was saltmarsh and creeks. The next major works in the area were further reclamation of the wet grazing land in the latter half of the 19th century to provide land for the expanding explosives industry. Dykes were dug and were used to transport the explosives around the site. Some of the old buildings can still be seen on the West Marsh, and in 1916 a massive explosion killed over one hundred people and this was nearly the end for that industry. The next major event was the huge storm of 1953 which flooded the marsh and ironically explosives were used to breach the sea wall to let the water out. The sea wall was rebuilt using local clay and the long dykes created running parallel to the sea wall, these are called borrow dykes because the clay was borrowed from them. The marsh became a nature reserve in 1984.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this report the object of the exercise was to sort out the Salicornias, now there are only a couple of difficult ones, and once you have sorted Sarcocornia perennis (perennial glasswort) which is the one you cannot pull up easily, the rest are all annuals and do pull up. Salicomia pusilla (one flowered glasswort) has only one flower and S. ramosissima (purple glasswort) is very purple and will only grow at the top of the saltmarsh and the others need a field guide. Eric was his usual self ensuring that all were shown and instructed in the identification of the Salicornias stressing that not all plants can be identified, and using things such as, this one is curvaceous like Marilyn Monroe or parallel sided like Bette Davis. On the recce we found Salicomia obscura (glaucous glasswort) but on the day it was not to be found. I forgot to mention that at this period it was raining hard and had been for some time and Eric and a couple of others only had thin jackets on so we decided it was time for lunch, some were lucky and got into a bird hide and others went back to the cars.
After lunch the wind changed and it stopped raining so off we went having a brief look to try and find the elusive S. obscura but to no avail. At this point a kingfisher did a fly past for us and it started raining again. But being British and WFS members we carried on with Eric showing all a wide selection of freshwater marsh plants including Ceratophyllum submersum (soft homwort) and Potamogeton berchtoldii (small pondweed) and various Lemnas all dragged out with his trusty grapple. We also had a discussion as to whether a clump of Typha was T. latifolia(bulrush) or the hybrid T. x glauca and as it did not have any flowering spikes was likely to have been the latter. One of our party wanted to see Ruppia maritima (beaked tasselweed) and our leader went to great lengths to try and find it but it was not to be, and as one member remarked Eric was indefatigable in his quest to satisfy peoples' requests, but that is what you get with Eric.
My part in the day's events was minor, just answering the telephone beforehand and providing the print outs of literature for the day itself. All our thanks should go to Eric. In spite of the weather I would like to mention that most, if not all enjoyed the day very much.
Just one note that Oare Marsh is maintained by the Kent Wildlife Trust and is possibly one of the best birding sites for autumn waders in Kent.
DOUG GRANT