The Fleet Observer

With spring arriving early the Fleet has been the place to be this last few days, and I am pleased to say a lot of people agreed and came along on the boat trip.

We were in the water early enough this year to witness the last of the Mergansers and the first morning trips and the late afternoons have been the time to see the Fleet at its best as they have coincided with falling tides and emerging mud flats.

The bass have started running, early this year, and we are enjoying the Terns feeding activity on the fry and shrimp, pushed to the surface by the marauding fish.

The visibility in the water has not been great but we can confirm our ususal inhabitants are still there, the Snake lock anenomes and the Sea squirts. We were lucky enough to catch some orange sea squirts but they are still elusive.

Well it’s time to break out the sunscreen and get back to the boat to welcome you during this glorious spell of weather”.

Thursday 19th April saw the return of the little terns to the Fleet, since the 19th we have had regular visits from little, common and sandwich terns. We have already had spectacular close up views of the terns from the boat and in the forthcoming weeks the Fleet will be alive with terns showing courtship behaviour, before settling down and making scrapes on the bank.

The little tern is a schedule 1 breeding bird. The smallest species of tern, this small sea bird travels from the south west coast of africa to the UK to nest. Chesil’s colony is the only colony on the whole of the south west coast and over recent years numbers have decreased due to poor breeding success.

Other regular visitors include little egret, meadow and rock pipit, skylark, increasing numbers of waders such as oyster catcher, dunlin, turnstone, ringed plover, curlew and many other spring migrants including, swallows, martins, wheatear and linnet.

Through out the season the glass bottom boat, as well as taking out guided trips, runs as a work boat, ferrying passengers and supplies to parts of Chesil (it’s a long walk from the Chesil Beach Centre).

Just recently we took out a group of volunteers from the Access to work through Conservation Project, organised by the Dorset branch of the Butterfly Conservation Trust, who were helping us with some preparation for the upcoming tern season and some renovations to our multi media project, although slightly misty both volunteers and staff enjoyed the day and we would like to thank the volunteers for their hard work.