Sunday 15 January 2017

HIGH TIDE ALERT

The Island was on high alert on Friday 13th for a tidal surge which thankfully wasn't as high as predicted. There was quite a group of folk went down to the waterfront in the middle of the night to see what the high tide was like. Pictured at the bottom of the Lane in West Mersea at 1am Saturday, the tide seemed like one of the familiar very high spring tides. This one seemed about a foot lower than the surge tide in 2013.

The sun shone onto the beach at the country park early on Saturday morning, where the recent high tides seemed to have spared the cliff at this eastern end, although some small slumps at the west end.

The Coopers Beach seawall had taken another pounding from the sea during Friday night's tide with several sections very vulnerable to collapsing completely and the sea ready to flow in behind.

Birds seen in the Coopers  and Rewsalls area on Saturday morning included a common buzzard, stonechat, 2 little egret, 80 curlew, 200 brent geese, redshank, 3 teal, little grebe, 4 sanderling, 20 turnstone, 3 fieldfare, 60 linnets, 10 reed bunting, 30 chaffinch, 6 stock dove, 9 skylark and 12 meadow pipit.

A sparrowhawk and 80 skylarks were seen near Bromans Lane.

The water rail and Slavonian grebe were seen at the country park by Steve Entwistle on Saturday, also 1000 golden plover at Chapmans Lane and a tawny owl at the end of the day near Manwood Grove.


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