Seaside at Sunset

Tags

Black-headed Seagull, common ragwort, Common Sea Lavender, gorse, hare's-foot clover, harvestman, mudflats, oil, Perennial Glasswort, plants, sand dunes, sea, sea campion, Sea Sandwort, Sea-holly, seashore, Suffolk, sunset, thrift, Walberswick

After a busy day last Friday and a hot, sunny day too, we thought it might be nice to go to the coast for a little while.  We knew that it would be extremely crowded for most of the day so we left it until after we had eaten our evening meal and set off just before 8.00 pm.

We decided that we’d visit Walberswick as we hadn’t been there for some time and parked the car in the car-park there at about 8.30 pm.

Walberswick. With its creeks, mudflats, sand-dunes and varied flora it is a favourite place of mine to visit.

The mass of mauve flowers you can see in the photo above are Sea Lavender.

Common Sea-lavender (Limonium vulgare)

I couldn’t get a clear picture of these flowers – mainly because I couldn’t get down low enough!  Sea-lavender (no relation of true Lavender) is related to the cultivated Statices – everlasting flowers.  Many people pick these flowers illegally to make dried flower arrangements.  Strangely, the drier the ground in which it grows, the taller it gets.  This plant grows in great masses on the North Norfolk coast and I would love to see it there again.

There wasn’t much Thrift or Sea Pink (Armeria maritima) left – mainly seedheads. Thrift is a relative of Common Sea-lavender.

There was a lot of rather scrappy Hare’s-foot Clover (Trifolium arvense)…

…and a small amount of Sea Campion (Silene uniflora)

I cropped the photo I took.

The calyx (the area behind the petals) is swollen, like Bladder Campion is and is similarly patterned with red veins. The petals are larger and thicker than other types of Campion and usually overlap each other.

Sea Sandwort (Honckenya peploides).  I like the way this plant grows. It reminds me of children’s building toys.

In Richard Mabey’s ‘Flora Britannica’ he says ‘… (Sea Sandwort) is one of the earliest colonisers of sand-dunes and shingle, and remarkable for its sprawling concertinas of geometrically stacked leaves’.  It is able to keep growing upwards so if ever it is inundated with sand or mud it can survive.  As with many seashore plants it is succulent and edible.

More Sea Sandwort, this time with a Harvestman or Harvest Spider. Can you see it? They are not true spiders but are related to them. They have one-piece bodies and no silk-glands so can’t spin webs.

Common Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) in flower and Gorse bushes (Ulex europaeus)

The dunes and my shadow!

Richard and Elinor beat me to the sea. The cool northerly breeze was so refreshing.

The sea and sky were beautiful

The sun was just setting behind us

Lumps of oil

More oil

I was sorry to see this oil on the beach.  This is evidence that tankers have been flushing out their tanks illegally in N W European waters .

The sunset progressed.

The view out to sea still looked good.

Seagulls were making their way out to wherever it is they go for the night…

…except these two Black-headed Gulls (Larus ridibundus) who seemed to be doing some synchronised beach-combing.

One last look at the sea…

We made our way back to the dunes where I found a couple more plants to photograph.

Sea-holly (Eryngium maritimum)

A most beautiful plant!

A cute little bug hoping I leave him alone!

Vetch and Hare’s-foot Clover

Perennial Glasswort (Sarcocornia perennis)

Another name for Glasswort is Samphire and like Common Glasswort (an annual plant which is also called Samphire) it can be eaten lightly boiled or pickled in spiced vinegar.

For many hundreds of years Glasswort was used in the manufacture of glass.  The succulent stems were gathered at low tide, dried and burned in heaps.  The crude ash which is high in soda was then fused with sand to make a poor quality glass.  Saltworts were also used for this purpose.

View inland with the R. Blyth on the right

We had enjoyed our hour on the beach and went home cool and relaxed.

Thanks for visiting!

Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside

Tags

beach huts, beach shop, cannon.Battle of Sole Bay, community radio station, flowers, fungus, GunHill, herring gull, high tide, lichen, life guards, pier, promenade, sand dunes, sea, seaside, shrubs, Southwold, Southwold & Walberswick ferry, Suffolk

My last but one post featured a walk we took on Dunwich beach.  This post is about a walk at Southwold.

As most people who live near the sea know, the best time to visit the beach is after the end of the school holidays.  There are fewer visitors and there’s a greater chance of finding somewhere to park your car.  The sea is warmer than at the beginning of summer and with luck the weather is good too.

We have been having fairly changeable weather this summer so when we saw that the weather was bright and breezy the other Saturday afternoon we decided to make the most of it and go to Southwold.  When we arrived we saw that the tide was right in and the northerly wind was causing the sea to be quite lively.

High Tide

The waves were rolling in round the base of the steps that go down to the sand so we couldn’t get onto the beach just yet.

Stairway to the sea

We walked along the promenade while the tide started to recede.

Southwold Pier

As I mentioned in a former post about Southwold, the pier was restored a few years ago.  It is fun to walk out there when the tide is in and see the waves splashing just under your feet.  There are places to sit and watch the waves and there are places to buy food and drink and shelter from the wind.  The end of the pier is very popular with fishermen.  This is a link to the Pier Cam which will show you a little of what we like to see.  There isn’t much to see at night except the lighthouse flashing but during the day-time it’s quite interesting and you get to find out what the temperature is on the coast too.  Don’t forget the time difference if you live overseas!

End of the Pier

There seemed to be a number of young Herring Gulls about. (Larus argentatus)

Immature Herring Gull

Immature Herring Gull

Immature Herring Gull

It was a really pleasant walk along the front with other promenaders.  As the sand started to appear people ventured onto the beach and the life guards marked out the safe bathing areas.  Huddled in coats and blankets, the beach hut owners were sitting with the doors opened as they read or drank hot tea or coffee.

Beach Shop

Southwold Beach

Southwold Beach

Elinor bewails the fact that our sea isn’t blue.  The North Sea is not deep and the sand on the sea-floor gets churned up especially in stormy weather.  Our sea is brown most of the time.

At the end of the prom. the path goes up the slope to Gun Hill.

Gun Hill

On the 28th May 1672 a famous sea battle was fought just off-shore from Southwold.  This was the Battle of Sole Bay when the English and French fleets clashed with the Dutch fleet.  It was the first naval battle of the 3rd Anglo-Dutch War and ended with a tactically indecisive result though a strategic Dutch victory.  The English and French fleets combined had a total of 71 warships and the Dutch had 61 vessels and the total number of men taking part was said to have been 50,000.  There was great loss of life.  James, Duke of York the brother of King Charles II was Admiral of the English Fleet and took up residence for the duration of the battle in Sutherland House in the town.

Cannon on Gun Hill

There are six 18lb cannon on the green and were given to the town in 1746 by The Royal Armouries as protection to shipping against raids.

Gun Hill

Their last known firing was in 1842 to celebrate the then Prince of Wales birthday.  Southwold was bombed during the First World War because the German army considered that Southwold might be a fortified place because they had seen the cannon.  The cannon were buried for safety during the Second World War!

Cannon

Cannon

Another feature of Gun Hill is the radio station building.

Community Radio Station in the Casino

The primary radio transmitting studio is located in an old WWII bunker in the grounds of St Felix School Reydon, a village next to Southwold but further inland.

Erigeron glauca

A few naturalised garden plants thrive on the slopes up from the beach.

Unknown Yellow Daisy

I don’t know what this flower is; I see it is suffering from mildew!

FrenchTamerisk (Tamarix gallica)

These plants are often planted for soil stabilisation or to act as a wind-break.  They aren’t native but have been established here for a long time and do very well on the coast.

Beach Huts

There are beach huts all the length of the sea-front.

Gun Hill Beach Café

This is one of the two kiosks that sell food and drink.

Looking Towards Walberswick

Walberswick is the seaside village next to Southwold going south down the coast.  The two places are separated by the River Blyth as it flows out to sea.  There is a ferry operating during the summer months.

Looking Towards Walberswick

Sand Dunes

We thought we might walk through the sand dunes to the ferry.

Sand Dunes

The Marram Grass (Ammophila arenaria) was bending in the strong wind.

Fairy-ring Champignons (Marasmius oreades)

I found a rather shrivelled fairy-ring.

Sea-Buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides)

The tree is small and suckers easily.  It has thorny twigs that have silvery scales that rub off.  The bark is fissured and peeling.

Sea-Buckthorn

The leaves are long and thin with silvery scales on them.  I couldn’t see any fruits on these trees so they were probably male trees.

Camp Site

There is a camp-site on the outskirts of the town.

We almost got to the River Blyth but Elinor began to get a back-ache and we had to turn round and make our way back to Southwold.

Towards Southwold

As well as the lighthouse you can see the tower of St Edmund’s church and the water tower.

Towards Southwold

Tiny House

Lichen

Chicory (Chicorium intybus)

Common Bird’s-foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus)

Southwold with one of it’s many greens.

Southwold

Southwold

Lifeguards

Southwold Beach

Sea at Southwold

Southwold

Southwold

Southwold

Here we were approaching the pier again and the car park beyond it.  You can also see the two-storey pavillion building at the end of the pier built in 1936.

I hope you have enjoyed this visit to Southwold.

Thanks for visiting!

 

Wells-Next-the-Sea

Tags

beach, Norfolk, pine woods, Rain, sand, sea, Wells-Next-the-Sea

Wells-Next-the-Sea

 

Last summer we visited the seaside town of Wells-Next-the-Sea in north Norfolk.  It is a very attractive little town with plenty of narrow, winding lanes, pretty cottages, interesting shops and a lovely wide green surrounded by elegant Georgian houses.  The place is very dear to me as I spent many holidays here as a girl.  It gets very crowded nowadays during the high-season and there is nowhere to park if you arrive after mid-morning.

Unfortunately, we set off rather late and stopped in Fakenham on the way to have lunch.

Fakenham is a pleasant market town in Norfolk

The place where we had our lunch.

 

 

Wells has a harbour but the beach is a mile away from the town and is reached by a narrow road and paths. There is a high bank next to the road which was built about 150 years ago to consolidate the channel that connects the sea to the harbour and also, I presume, to act as a sea defence.  The paths are on the sea-wall.  During the summer months there is also a narrow-gauge railway that shuttles holiday-makers to and from the beach.

View from the top of the bank, across the tidal waterway (called ‘The Run’ I believe) that connects the harbour with the open sea, to the mudflats and saltmarsh beyond.

 

We decided to forego the delights of the town and so drove along the road to the beach car-park at Pinewoods.  We found nowhere to park (of course!) so left Alice and Elinor there with our belongings and drove back to the town where there was an overflow car-park next to the playing field.  We thought we might return to the beach on the little train but we had just missed one and there was a long wait for the next.  We walked along the sea wall in the strong sunshine.  It was very warm work.

Looking towards the sea in the distance

A poor photograph of Viper’s-bugloss (Echium vulgare) that was growing at the side of the path

 

 

 

We found the girls and shared out the bags and chairs and started to walk through the pine woods to the beach.  I remember playing in these woods with my brother and sister over forty years ago when it was wilder and there were fewer designated paths through the dunes.  Red squirrels were still to be found there in the early 70’s but they were under great threat and had died out by the mid 1970’s I believe.  Sadly, I never saw a live red squirrel only a dead one.  At intervals along the path there are steep slopes and steps up to the top of the dunes from where you suddenly see miles of sandy beach and the sea in the distance.

A lovely sandy beach where one can find pretty shells and where jelly-fish swim in the shallow warm-water inlets

I love to see the pine trees so close to the sea.

 

 

We walked some way across the sand in the direction of the sea.  The tide goes out for miles here but when it turns, it rolls in very quickly and many people get stranded on sandbanks every year by not heeding the tide and not listening out for the warning siren.

The beach huts here are on stilts

More beach huts

 

 

As seems to be what happens to us whenever we visit this beach, no sooner had we settled ourselves on the sand when the wind picked up and large clouds appeared.  I was glad of my hat and coat.

What is known as ‘an interesting sky’.

A bit of cloudy sky didn’t put people off their relentless march towards the distant sea.

It’s okay! That raincloud isn’t coming this way!

It looks quite nice over there.

People began to make their way back towards the woods.

This is me! I was glad of the hat and coat.

A yacht going out to sea. Notice the off-shore windmills in the distance. These days it is rare to find a place where you can look out to sea and not see windmills.

The sea was getting rougher

There are always fishermen on the beach

The visibility was getting worse.

A buoy

Wet sand

When we saw this we reluctantly started back towards the pinewoods.

It began raining just as we reached the woods and rained very heavily while we walked under the trees.  It stopped eventually and we walked back along the sea wall to the car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Visit to Minsmere

Tags

Avocet, BBC's Springwatch, Bird's-foot Trefoil, Bittern, Cuckoo, greylags, Highland Cattle, marshes, Minsmere, Mute Swan, Nightingale, Oystercatcher, Pop-Up Café, Rabbit, RSPB, Sand martin, sea, Sea Kale, Sluice, tank traps, The Scrape, Whitethroat

For several weeks I have been wanting to re-visit Minsmere.  Minsmere is a bird reserve run and owned by the RSPB (the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) to which all four of us belong.  Minsmere is also the RSPB’s so-called ‘flag-ship’ reserve – the biggest and best in the country and we are lucky enough to live just a few miles from it.  There were three main reasons why I wished to go to Minsmere – I hadn’t been there for ages and missed it – I wanted to hear a nightingale again and there is usually a nightingale to be heard there at this time of year and lastly – I had heard that the BBC would be filming their Springwatch programmes there for the next three weeks starting on Monday 26th May and I wanted to go before they arrived.

R has been on annual leave this last week so we decided that we should go to Minsmere on Friday afternoon.  E and I had a very early start on Friday – up at 6.15am for me and 6.30am for her as she had a hospital appointment to go to in Norwich at 8.30am and we needed to leave the house at 7.15am to get there on time.  When that was over E decided she would like to do some shopping for books so we called in at Waterstones and she made a couple of purchases.  We then went to HMV to look at DVDs etc. and then we had lunch in a coffee shop.  We returned home via Beccles for more shopping.  Fortunately the weather had stayed dry for all of our journey.

R and I had a hot drink and a chat while I rested after my busy morning and then we set off.  There was a slight shower of rain as we drove there but it had all cleared away by the time we had parked the car in the carpark.  We decided to go towards the sea first and walked past the wildlife ponds near the Visitor Centre.  There is a sandy cliff behind the visitor centre where Sand Martins nest each year.  The Martins were very busy nesting and catching insects, flying low over our heads.  We were very pleased to hear a Cuckoo calling all the time we were there.  We hadn’t heard one for some years.

The rabbits on the reserve have no fear of humans

The path starts off over heathland and then carries on towards the sea on a raised bank through water meadows and marshland.

On our right to the south is Sizewell ‘B’ nuclear power station with Sizewell ‘A’ behind it.

On our left are the Coastguard Cottages on land owned by the National Trust.

 

This is looking back along the path we had just walked.  It has recently been re-laid and covered with gravel.  Crunching along these paths is a noisy business and all the birds disappear as soon as anyone steps onto them.  A lot of damage was done here during the storm surge in December and in the high winds and flooding during the winter; the RSPB have worked very hard trying to put things right again.  They also like to make as much of the reserve accessible to the disabled as possible – and – the BBC are filming one of the country’s most popular programmes here so it must look really neat and well cared for!

The entrance to the beach.

The dunes at the top of the beach.

At last we got to the sea.  The sky out at sea looked very threatening but overhead was bright and sunny.

This is looking north towards the town of Southwold.  The lighthouse was flashing its light so conditions and visibility at sea mustn’t have been good.  I tried to get a photo with the light from the lighthouse shining but couldn’t.

Sea Kale growing on the beach

These are tank traps that were put here at the beginning of the Second World War.  If there had been an invasion it was hoped these might hold up the tanks for a while. There are many mementos of wartime in Britain, especially round the coast.

PD James’ book ‘Unnatural Causes’ is set here on the Suffolk coast.  One of characters in the book dies a most unpleasant death in one of the hides along the beach.

The sandy path that runs between the dunes and the reeds of the reserve.  We had walked by the sea for a while but an extremely stiff and cold onshore breeze was blowing so I escaped to the warm shelter of this path.

Bird’s-foot Trefoil growing at the side of the path.

We went into one of the hides further along the beach and sat and looked inland across the Scrape at the birds nesting, eating, wading and getting on with their lives on the reserve.  The hide we were in had been damaged some time over winter and had no roof but as the weather was so lovely it didn’t matter much.  The birds were aware of our presence and didn’t get too close.  We were still able to see a lot through binoculars but we weren’t able to photograph much.

These are greylags with goslings.

An Oystercatcher.

A poor photo of an Avocet.  You can almost see its long upturned bill!

Mute Swans and other waders, ducks and gulls.

We eventually decided to move on and left the beach by another gate further south from the one we’d entered by.  There is a sluice there.  Water levels are monitored all the time.  The Scrape and lagoon need to have enough water in them but water levels must not get too high.  The RSPB works with other groups such as the owner of the nuclear power station and the National Trust to maintain flood defences.

Views over the marshes.

A photo of a Whitethroat singing from the top of a bush. We couldn’t get any closer I’m afraid so it’s not very clear.

Highland cattle are used for marshland grazing.  They also use (or used to use) Konic Ponies for the same purpose.

We walked back towards the woods on the noisy path listening to Sedge Warblers and Whitethroats and many more birds along the way.  We saw that the whole reserve was wired for sound.  There were cables everywhere and cameras attached to nest boxes and every now and then we came across one or two people working in ditches and under bushes trying to fix something.  In the woods we also found a Pop-Up Café.

This was run by an enterprising East European couple.  R and I had the best coffee I’ve ever had.  It cost us £5.00 for two coffees which is very expensive for Suffolk but we did get two free pastries with it.  The girl put a pretty pattern on the top of mine.

After eating our pain au chocolat and drinking our coffee we walked a little way up into the wood and sat listening to the birds.  We heard a Bittern ‘booming’ which we were pleased about but unfortunately we weren’t able to hear a nightingale.  It was becoming late by this time and we decided to go home.  The BBC is only filming on Mondays to Thursdays so I may go back next Friday and just walk round the wood and try to hear the nightingale.  A and I walked here a few years ago listening to one singing and we even saw it too.  When I first moved to Suffolk in 1988 I lived in Halesworth and I used to be able to hear nightingales singing all night from the Folly on the edge of the town.  Sadly there are fewer Nightingales about and I haven’t heard one for about four years.