Foulness Island of plants and invertebrates thrive there. Other birds which use the island for breeding include avocet, common tern, little tern, Sandwich tern and ringed plover. During the winter months, in excess of 100,000 waterfowl have been reported. The avocet population is the second largest in the United Kingdom. The Foulness SSSI has been designated as a Special Protection Area for Birds under the EC Birds Directive, and is also a Ramsar site under the Ramsar Convention because of its importance as a wetland. Foulness Island Foulness Island () is an island on the east coast of Essex in England, which
Foulness Island square miles, with a population of 600,000 people. The cost was to be a then-astronomical £825 million (£8,448 million today), which many regarded as unacceptable. The Maplin project was abandoned in July 1974 when Labour came to power in the shadow of the 1973 oil crisis. Most of the island was flooded in 1953, as a result of exceptional weather conditions which affected much of the Netherlands and the east coast of England. High water at Southend was expected to be above mean sea level at 1:30 am on Sunday 1 February. The actual tide rose to above mean sea