If you've never seen the swans at Mistley on the Essex marshes, you've missed a treat. Indeed a treat that's fast disappearing. The basin at Mistley used to feature one of Europe's largest herds of swans - in the 1950s well over 1000 swans regularly gathered to enjoy the treat of a food rich location. The swans gathered at Mistley because of the maltings on the river - the water used in the works was rich in the residues from the malt making for a great feeding ground.Today the swan numbers are down to a couple of hundred - when the picture above was taken a couple of years ago, there were only around 50 or 60 pairs in the basin. Some of this is down to the management of the river but it is mostly, I suspect, because the maltings have closed and the swans get get better pickings elsewhere. The sight of a sea of white birds from bank to bank that I saw on my first visit in 1980 is no more and will likely not return.
The Essex marshes are a pretty special area (although they get more workaday and less special as you head towards Harwich) with places like Mistley and Manningtree making for an attractive location - Manningtree used to have a great railway bar - privately run and serving maybe the best range of beers in the town. A bit like the maltings and the swans this is now gone - replaced by a plastic cafe.
Essex gets a bad name - one of the last places, the people of which can be bad-mouthed, made a joke of and ridiculed with seeming impunity. Not that they mind of course - after all they made up most of the jokes themselves. And what's wrong with 5-in stilettos and a soft-top motor anyway? At least Essex folk are honest about aspiring to these things! Anyway, the area around Mistley is lovely and worth a visit where the locals will, of course, remind you that Constable country is mostly in Essex rather than Suffolk. And that it's perfectly OK to shoot and eat ducks!
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