The new book, ‘Birds of the Salcombe and Kingsbridge Estuary’, has already raised several thousand pounds for repairs and improvements to Charleton Marsh Hide, now twenty years old. The photographers, who together gave more than a hundred bird photos to illustrate the book, can take much of the credit for the book’s success: Geoff Foale, Bruce Church, Michael Brooking and Lloyd Gray have supplied the most.

The old bird-table had fallen into disrepair. Our friend Liam Johns, who is a top-class carpenter, volunteered to make us a new one in hard-wood and this week he arrived with the beautiful, finished article. A group of the bird-counters have put up Liam’s quality bird-table beside the ditch below the hide. The funds raised from the book will pay for the cost of the hard-wood, while Liam has provided his skilled labour free. If you go down to the hide, we hope you may see lots of birds feeding from the table, including some rare cirl buntings, like this one Geoff Foale snapped feeding from the seed-feeder hanging from the old bird-table.

There can be tits, finches, thrushes and great spotted woodpeckers visiting the bird-feeders, these birds attract the occasional sparrow-hawk, hoping to find something for breakfast. Lloyd Gray, who spends many hours in the hide, captured this amazing photo of a sparrow-hawk perched below the hide. Luckily for the smaller birds, there is a thick hedge nearby, where they can dive for cover.

We have bought more non-slip netting for the walkways and preservative to keep the woodwork in good condition. Michael Brooking, who has been a professional decorator and has painted the hide with preservative many times over the last twenty years, will be in charge of the preservative painting group and all the materials will be paid from the hide fund. Michael has been counting the estuary birds for about fifty years. He is also an expert on butterflies, especially the rare ones around our coast. He has travelled the World looking at birds and butterflies. On the estuary he has caught some remarkable photos of birds, which are in the estuary book, but these beautiful spotted redshanks are not in the book. Michael saw them feeding on the muddy pools that we call Wal’s Scrapes. We will continue trying to keep the scrapes wet and muddy, so they attract the wading birds and dabbling ducks.

A wonderful thing about the Charleton Marsh Hide is that it faces in two directions, northwards over the marsh and southwards over the mud and water of Charleton Bay. As the tide comes up birds get closer. There are ducks, wigeon, teal and shelduck floating on the water or waddling over the mud. There are brent geese, with black necks and white tail-ends and sometimes a great- crested grebe or that magnificent great northern diver. Bruce Church took a fine photo of a great northern diver, which is in the book, and another of my favourite photos that Bruce has taken is of this pair of swans with a delicate little egret, both species that are often at the water’s edge below the hide.

Over the last few years the blackthorn hedge which grows along the sea-wall, around the hide, has obscured the view down to the ditch. This is where I used regularly to see a kingfisher. Our photographers have taken some beautiful photos of kingfishers, which are in the estuary book and some put up in the hide; perhaps my favourites are the ones by Tim Hockin, that he took at Bowcombe Creek.

We have done some trimming so we can all see the kingfisher clearly again and the water rail that often comes to pick up crumbs from under the bird-table.