The wild side of the docks

It might be the place to party for some, but residents and experts of the docks can reveal wilder sights than just hens and stags.

Once a hub of maritime trade, Bristol’s harbour teemed with boats and industry making it an inhospitable location for wary wildlife.

Now it has been transformed with modern bars and restaurants and to the casual observer, the wildest sights here might be courtesy of the stag and hen parties that swarm the water front.

But those that live and work in the area can share a view of its natural secrets.

Ed Drewitt is the Bristol Ferry Boats’ on-board naturalist for its waterside wildlife tours and the author and broadcaster enthuses about the area’s birdlife.

“I remember five or six years ago a few birds such as coots, tufted ducks and great crested grebes not normally seen in the harbour suddenly appeared, pushed off other water bodies that had become frozen,” he says.

“The Castle Park and Temple Meads part of the harbour is good for spotting kingfishers, especially at this time of the year, while it is worth keeping your eyes to the sky near Castle Park to look for the peregrines which hunt overhead and roost nearby.” 

Cormorants, the large dark birds with long necks used to catch their fish dinners, are often seen resting on the pontoons close to the M-Shed museum.

Of course, you can’t discuss the flying residents of Bristol’s harbour without mentioning the gulls.

Herring gulls and lesser black backed gulls are found in abundance in the docks and with their numbers declining in rural and island locations, Ed hopes we can live harmoniously with the birds in their new urban niche.

The residents of Bristol’s house boats meanwhile claim that the otter is the city’s star attraction after a few close encounters that would have been unbelievable thirty years ago.

This is no urban legend: in 2011 after discovering droppings beneath a bridge, council workers set up a hidden camera and discovered one of the animals making its home around the city’s floating harbour.
It’s regarded as one of the most urban recordings of an otter in the country.

The appearance of these elusive mammals is a great indicator of the health of Bristol’s waterways.

It might look brown and murky, but the Avon is actually home to most of the UK’s freshwater fish species which provide a rich diet for our otters. 

The success of freshwater species in Bristol is down to a huge improvement in water quality.

From the apex predators right down to caddis fly larvae, everything benefits from reduced pollution and better water efficiency so less pressure is put on their environment.

For example, a floating reed bed established as part of the housing development at Canon’s Marsh to help with run-off water now provides a breeding site for at least four species of damselfly.

While some areas of the harbourside might seem unloved from our perspective, scrubland such as the sidings of the disused Wapping Wharf Railway and near the Redcliffe roundabout are an untouched haven for wildlife.

So next time you visit the city’s docks, take a look from a green point of view and you might see something that surprises you.

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