Two pictures taken late yesterday afternoon at Minsmere, Suffolk.
The photos were taken seconds apart. One shows the proximity to Sizewell.
Part of the shoreline at Minsmere was overwhelmed by the sea on Friday night. We are building another nuclear power station on that site. It is insane to do so.
Due to high water levels, there were very few waders on the reserve.
Ducks were good, though, with pintail, long-tailed duck and goldeneye all putting in appearances.
And to keep my friend happy, as he is a bit of a twitcher and was desperate for one for his year list, a bearded tit put in an appearance.
But what I enjoyed most, apart from the conversation, was the twelve marsh harriers that put in an appearance simultaneously before roosting and the fact that the starling murmuration happening at the same time seemed quite confident that it could ignore them: they were sated for the day.
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DO keep these pieces as part of your blog…. if for no other reason than to let us know that you are human.
Your prodigious output sometimes makes me wonder…..
I promise you, I am human…..
Beautiful pics, and beautiful area. I used to walk a lot around Minsmere, and the beaches on that coast too. And well remember the “Sizewell, Twinned with Chernobyl” signs. As you say, Insane.
It’s always nice to know there are kindred spirits
It’s marvellous that you know more about coastal engineering than I do.
So, tell me (because you seem to be who you claim to be) how Sizewell can be saved from flooding during the period when there will be radioactive waste on the site, given what happened to Dunwich next door. In detail please, given your claim. And, let me be clear, for the sake of East Anglia I need you to be 100% certain, nothing less. The risk is too big to consider anything less. I await your reply.
Please reconcile your comments with this https://www.coasteast.org.uk/cliff
I used to visit Dunwich/Minsmere with my grandparents as a child, Richard (my grandfather and great grandfather had been policemen in and around the Saxmudham/Leiston area so knew the area well). And I then took my kids there whenever we went over to Ipswich to visit my grandparents – although, sadly, by then they were too old to enjoy the drive up to Dunwich. A beautiful place, despite Sizewell. On which point, I wouldn’t fret about that if I were you. Another nuclear power plant there is about as likely to get built as me growing a second head. Glad the bird watching was pretty good. A flock of Goldfinches has been on my feeders all day today (until then only Blue, Great and Long-Tailed Tits and our resident Robin) which is always a sign we have cold weather around for a while.
A ’charm’ of goldfinch – which is the collective nun, nad i rather like it.
I thought I saw a single goldfinch this morning – which is always unusual – and then realised it was a goldcrest
That was confirmed by the Merlin bird app
If readers here have a smartphone the Merlin app is very good – so long as you ignore the occasional improbable suggestions – and it is free
My warbler identification has improved massively by using it
Has Sizewell C been given the go-ahead yet? I know TASC were in court at the beginning of the month appealing against the fact that there is no water supply in the plans for Sizewell C.
https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2020/10/goldfinch-lost-spells-extract/
If you haven’t seen these books, or performances, yet, they are brilliant. Just surprises me that the word goldfinch is going out of children’s vocabulary.
I know it has got government funding
Wasn’t it given about £500 million to prepare the ground, or something like that.
They still haven’t got anyone to support EDF, I don’t think. The problem is that once it goes to court you never hear for ages.
Centrica is thinking of investing £30 billion in it. I wonder where they got that money from?
There’s talk about building a new one at Hartlepool, about 30 miles away from here. The old one is 40 years old and should be decommissioned in 2026. I think they may have got their timing wrong there.
We were in Aberystwyth on Thursday and saw the starling murmuration – exquisitely spectacular. So relieved to see so many birds partaking given diminishing starling numbers.
Murmurations are amazing. I have never seen the Aber one. Glad it is still good.
I saw one over the Marshside RSPB site this week. It was unexpected and wonderful. I can’t understand how they don’t fly into each other!
We would….
I agree completely about Sizewell C. It is insane to build another reactor on a rapidly eroding coast. However, Sizewell C is only part of the threat to this beautiful area. There are advanced plans to turn the whole of the Heritage Coast AONB from Sizewell to Southwold into an energy hub with landing sites for interconnectors and wind farms. The damage to the Minsmere-Walberswick national nature reserve and SSSI would be huge. See: https://www.suffolkenergyactionsolutions.co.uk/