WIRED-UP widgeon and the health of the local worm population occupied the day's business at the Dibden Bay public inquiry.

The year-long analysis of Associated British Ports' plan to turn the Bay into a container terminal has reached Day 43 and is well into Topic Six - nature conservation.

In the public gallery, bird and wildlife experts outnumbered local residents to listen to detailed accounts of the breeding preferences of teal and the feeding habits of blacktailed godwits.

Philip Colebourn, ABP's ecology expert, explained that radio-tagging had been used to solve the mystery of where widgeons went at night - part of a five-year programme to count up the birds who might call the reclaimed mudflats of Dibden Bay home.

"Data collected through radio tagging individual birds has contributed to a greater understanding of how species use the Dibden Reclaim," said Mr Colebourn.

"Results show widgeon , teal, gadwall and pintail feed on the reclaim at night and move to daytime roosting sites at Eling, Hythe and Cadland marshes."

He said the plan by ABP to use dredged material to "recharge" marshland between Hythe and Cadland would improve feeding areas by capping possibly contaminated mud.

"The Hythe to Cadland foreshore is clearly not in a favourable condition. The existing use of this foreshore by water birds is not as great as you might expect," said Mr Colebourn.

He said it was important to see the Dibden Bay project in proportion.

"The Solent has 9,000 hectares of suitable feeding grounds for waterfowl. It is one of the most important areas in the UK," said Mr Colebourn.

"But Dibden Bay is small-scale in terms of the resources available locally - only about one per cent of the total proportion of bird habitat in the Solent Special Protection Area."

He said many objectors had overstated the importance of Dibden Bay to wildfowl, and he criticised "unscientific and inconsistent" data analysis.

"Some objectors have produced figures which are so unreliable, their conclusions are suspect and misleading," said Mr Colebourn.

"There is, however, one prediction of which I can be absolutely certain. After Dibden Terminal is complete, none of the birds displaced from Dibden foreshore will have died as a result."

Mr Colebourn is due to be grilled by nature experts from English Nature, the Environment Agency, the RSPB, and the county and district councils.