National Whale and Dolphin Watch

Next Saturday 30th July Tania and I will be holding our annual Sea Watch Foundation National Whale and Dolphin Watch. We will be at Weybourne (NR25 7AH) 100m East of the beach car park from 9am to 4pm – everyone is welcome to come and help spot cetaceans. Bring along binoculars and some small change for the car park.

Shopping at Iceland

Wandering up and down the beach at Weybourne this week was an Iceland Gull. Alternating between the Sperm Whale and a couple of dead Grey Seal pups it was sustaining itself on a rich supply of beach-kill.

A Good Feed

A turnstone is not an unusual site here in North Norfolk. However a Turnstone feeding on a Sperm Whale is quite a unique site. The 13.9m sub adult male washed up last week at Weybourne and immediately formed a dining table for several species of birds.

Kelling Heath and the Chalk Reef

If you have visited North Norfolk to bird watch or you live locally you need to be aware of something. DONG Energy (a Danish Company) have given planning notice of an offshore windfarm development called the Hornsea Project Three.

 

In a nutshell the offshore 342 wind turbines, 19 or so offshore platforms,12 transformer substations and up to 3 accommodation platforms will be located 121km northeast of the Norfolk coast and 160km east of the Yorkshire coast. They will be connected to the shore by up to six undersea cables running in a south-westerly direction from the windfarm to the proposed landfall at Weybourne in North Norfolk via a possible booster station based out at sea. From here it is proposed the cables will be buried in up to 6 trenches, running in a south/south-westerly direction for approximately 55 km and will connect to the national grid between Swardeston and Stoke Holy Cross in South Norfolk. the development area will be up to 200m wide along it’s length.

 

The construction of booster stations along the route may also be required.

There will be construction of temporary haul roads and temporary access tracks, both alongside and separate from the cable route used for the purpose of enabling the underground works

Notice has been given of the required temporary stopping up, alteration or diversion of any street and the permanent and/or temporary compulsory acquisition of land.

A couple of maps are available here Hornsea Project Three_Onshore_Statutory_Consultation_Plan_July 2017 Hornsea Project Three_Project Overview_Phase 2_Statutory_Consultation_Pl.._ showing the seabed route which importantly bisects the offshore chalk reef and also the proposed alternative route across Kelling Heath.

 

Birds such as Dartford Warbler and Woodlark will probably be effected. Adders and butterflies such as Silver studded blue may also be effected. It’s up to you, me and the rest of us to object if we find these plans unacceptable. You have until 20th September to make representation to DONG Energy, by email to HornseaProjectThree@dongenergy.co.uk or by post to Hornsea Project Three offshore wind farm, DONG Energy, 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.

Full details of the project are available on the Dong Website http://www.dongenergy.co.uk/uk-business-activities/wind-power/offshore-wind-farms-in-the-uk/hornsea-project-three-development

I have been sent details in my capacity as an interested party using the county for wildlife tours for my comments.

 

My thoughts: The government has stated that by 2040 there will be a major move away from petrol and diesel vehicles to electric cars and are investing heavily in battery technology to make this happen. This is good. We have to move away from the use of fossil fuels to countermand global warming effects. Power supplies must be developed to enable this change. We have several choices; wind and wave electricity production are two of those choices. So love them or hate them windfarms are part of the resolution. However North Norfolk does not feel like the place development of this kind should take place. I feel we could use the area around Paston to land the cables thereby keeping the heavy industry within Norfolk contained in one place and make the transport of energy to the grid without cutting across an internationally important chalk reef and a nationally important heathland area.

… Tundra’s

At Weybourne here on the coast a harvested sugar beet field hosted a nice sized Pinkfeet flock. Among them were eight or nine interlopers. It’s amazing how folds in a seemingly flat field can hide something as large as a goose. Add rain, mist, failing winter light and a considerable distance to the birds into the equation and it wasn’t without some degree of difficulty we photographed the Tundra Bean Geese; pushing our cameras to the limit.

As they suddenly appeared, and then disappeared just as easily, we struggled to even find the Tundras in camera viewfinders. Big geese with sloping flat bills like wedges of orange and black compared with the stubby bills of the Pinks… and then there’s the orange feet and legs… if you can see them!