An Ode to City Quay

If you’re ever looking for me, a good place to start would be Victoria Dock. Alongside Camperdown Dock, it’s one of Dundee’s two remaining historic harbours, once integral to the city’s jute trade and whaling industry, the others having been long since infilled to make way for what is now Discovery Point, Slessor Gardens and the offramp for the Tay Road Bridge. It should be easy enough to spot me as I’m sometimes the only person there.

However, this is not because I live on Marine Parade, regularly dine at Porters Bar & Restaurant or frequent the Frigate Unicorn. I have no real business being at City Quay, but for the last few years have derived a great deal of pleasure from it. Others may visit the dentist or cafe, or for the inflatables at FoxLake, but I’m there for something else: to photograph the incredible and all too often overlooked wildlife that calls it home.

In truth, it took me years to discover what City Quay had to offer. I first visited shortly after the modern retail complex opened in 2002 to buy already discounted X-Files box-sets from The Works, then swiftly forgot it even existed. I was living in landlocked Leicestershire at the time and quickly conflated the memory of it with various other retail parks I’d visited, so much so that when I later returned to Dundee and resolved to seek it out I couldn’t remember how to get there.

It was Pokemon Go! of all things that brought me back. I’d heard a Gyarados had been caught in the area and had by that point exhausted the water-types geolocated in Broughty Ferry. I wasn’t the only one, either —but while other wouldbe trainers stuck largely to the entrance, exploring no further than the North Carr Lightship, I started to do laps. I never did capture a Gyarados, but I did find a cormorant crucifixing on a partially collapsed pier in the middle of the dock.

I’d never seen anything like it, at least not consciously. It was massive, much bigger than the gulls and pigeons that surrounded it. It amazed me that something so large and alien could exist in a place like Dundee, and that it wasn’t drawing more attention. What else had I missed while staring at my phone? I’d underestimated Scotland — not for the first time and certainly not for the last — and wondered what other wildlife City Quay might be home to.

In the years since, it has never stopped surprising me. The more time I spent at City Quay the more I started to see. That first cormorant had been no fluke of nature, and each morning more could be found sleeping on top of lampposts or drying their wings on the various ropes and riggings. Around them flew an astonishing array of small birds — iridescent starlings pulled worms out of the grass, chittering goldfinches undulated overhead and oystercatchers shrieked from above. In summer, aerobatic swallows sortied through the streets and rested on the handrails

It wasn’t just birds, though. The first time I saw a seal in the water I thought I was hallucinating. I couldn’t for the life of me work out how it got there and called the SSPCA to report it, only to be told it happens all the time and the seal would likely see itself out. The gate to City Quay doesn’t work, but on further inspection I realised that high tide saw the water levels rise until they just about covered the bottom rung of the gate — creating just enough space for a seal to slip inside. But why?

I started seeing them more often, especially in winter when they had the water largely to themselves — the inflatables having been retired and boating clubs suspended for the offseason. One in particular — a seal with damage to its left eye — returned regularly, using the corners of the dock to trap fish. As I watched it feeding, it pulled an endless assortment of food from the water — crabs, eels and starfish, again transforming my understanding of the health and productivity of the water within the quay.

There’s nothing quite like staring into the eye of a wild animal, and especially an intelligent mammal like a seal. Every so often it would surface at my feet, sometimes heralded by a disturbance on the surface or amorphous shape beneath the waves but sometimes taking me completely by surprise, and rather than retreating it would hold my gaze, swimming along the quayside before diving out of sight—only to reappear at the other end of the dock or not at all if it had crossed undetected into connected Camperdown.

I also heard of otters visiting City Quay in the early hours, over-landing from the river into the dock not through the gate but via the street. A video online showed one darting across the carpark at the end of Gourlay Yard. I’m not usually around before dawn, and would likely tear my hair out if I encountered an otter but didn’t have the light needed to photograph it, but I did eventually cross paths with one in early 2021. Or rather, I cought it sleeping in the winter sun, curled up in the corner of an exposed kelp-covered platform at the side of Thorter Row. It was just after noon and the esplanade was busy with pedestrians, but the otter nevertheless went unnoticed by everyone but me.

It’s the chance of more encounters like these that keep me returning week after week, if not day after day. I’ve only seen the otter once since, later that month fishing along the riverside, but I hope to one day see it again. I’ve photographed them in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Perth, but it’s nice to know I have them on my doorstep as well. And the surprises keep coming to this day. I recently heard that a porpoise had been discovered in Camperdown Dock and had to be herded back out at the next high tide — ironic, perhaps, given Dundee’s whaling past. It’s hard enough to reconcile the presence of seals with the awkwardness of the opening, let alone a porpoise.

But change is coming to City Quay. Eden Project has transformative plans to redevelop the site of the former Dundee Gasworks across the road and railway from City Quay —but with offshoots that connect to and encroach on Camperdown Dock. This may well involve repairing the gates and once again opening the marina to the outside world, providing access to boats and improving leisure opportunities, especially for the watersports companies already in situ.

There is of course potential for positive change, with greater investment, accessibility and attention rightly recentering City Quay as one of Dundee’s premier attractions. It’s a beautiful part of the city, with breathtaking views of the Tay from Marine Parade, access to HMS Unicorn docked at South Victoria Dock Road and a street of sensitively restored harbour buildings along Chandler’s Lane. The plans are bold and exciting, and the artist’s impression incredibly eye-catching. A Quay that is as green as it is blue, and water that looks considerably cleaner.

But part of City Quay’s present charm is its ramshackle quaintness. Selfishly, I quite like having it to myself, but I also worry about the effect increased traffic and footfall might have on the wildlife I currently get to share it with. Parts of the Quay are fenced off and inaccessible, unsightly vegetation grows out of the walls and pavement and parts of it are used only by idling delivery drivers. But left alone and often overlooked, birds nest, seals fish and otters snooze. Sparrowhawks prey upon distracted pigeons and domestic cats settle territorial disputes. Fill in the cracks and cut back the weeds and you risk displacing the animals that live there.

But to focus on what City Quay could be — for better or for worse — is to ignore what it is: an oasis in the heart of Scotland’s fourth largest city, in the shadow of V&A Dundee and RRS Discovery, one where you can track oystercatchers, cormorants and sparrowhawks across the sky or scan the glassy surface for rippling seals, otters and porpoises. It has a long history and a bright future, but for me City Quay is where I prefer to spend the neglected present.