Bill, Beaches and Birdlife, 9th November 2024

Published 16:38 on 12 Dec 2024

Oh we do love to be beside the seaside…even when the weather does remain resolutely fifty shades of grey. Our 35 walkers explored the west side of Selsey this year, first stop on the tour Selsey Bill for a view from the land of the grey but smooth and windless sea, the Owers and Mixon Reef, before walking along the shingle beach to Seal Bay holiday resort for a coffee break.

From the viewpoint at Medmerry, site of the largest managed realignment of open coast in Europe, we saw the breach created in 2013 which saved hundreds of Selsey homes from flooding and formed the nature reserve now managed by the RSPB. Golden plover were sighted by our resident expert Kerry Jackson as well as sandwich terns, cormorants and overwintering geese.

Back in Selsey and a stop outside the Tudor cottage home from 1968 until his death in 2012 of astronomer Sir Patrick Moore who built four observatories in his garden from where he presented many episodes of his long-running (55 years) TV series The Sky at Night. In 2008 his friend, the Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May, bought the house to ensure Patrick Moore could remain living and working there. The name of the house then was Farthings, now renamed FarThings…

Lunch was a large buffet spread at The Seal pub in Selsey with plenty for all diners and doggy/hubby bags to take home. 

David and Amanda Pearce

Last updated 17:05 on 10 January 2025