I Love this time of year!! The leaves are starting to turn creating an amazing array of colours as I drive in to work and the birds! So many birds! It is so fantastic that just as the summer is over and the swallows are beginning to make their way south we get a huge influx of other visitors from the north! However it is not only amazing birds that we see around this area, our friend Chris has been doing some sterling work finding out about all the other species that inhabit this fascinating landscape, so once again it is over to him!
Things are turning ever so slightly Autumnal around here, I can tell because I’ve started wearing my woolly jumpers to work... but that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of life about still, and lots of species to record.
While out looking for large mammals recently, we found this late summer straggler near to Kinneil lagoons, a species that has managed to evade all the butterfly walks I have done over the last few weeks, so I was happy to see it.
Fig. 1. Female Common Blue Butterfly, (Polyommatus icarus) (credit: Chris Knowles)
Apart from a chance encounter with a brave field mouse that stood it’s ground in broad daylight for a good 10 seconds or so (which is a long time for a wee mouse), our next best mammalian encounter was finding the recently excavated remains of a subterranean wasp nest, which had presumably been unearthed by a foraging fox or badger. The wasps seemed quite annoyed, so I didn’t hang around to ID them (this time).
Fig. 2. Wasps reassembling their nest and readying for attack – I think (credit: Chris Knowles)
As an ongoing introduction to saltmarsh plants, this time I bring you a group of pioneer species, the glassworts. They are described as pioneer because they will be found at the most inhospitable edge of the saltmarsh, out on the high mudflats where their roots are some of the first to bind the intertidal mud, making it easier for other plants to come behind.
Fig. 2. A glasswort with a view, (Salicornia dolichostachya?) (credit: Chris Knowles)
The common name refers to the historical practice of using the ashes of the plant to make glass, but pinning down a true species name can prove to be far more difficult as the succulent leaves are pressed up against the stem, and the flowers seem like tiny trios of dots pressed into the leaves.
If you’ve not seen it before, do keep your eyes peeled for it, and I’m always happy to hear of sightings – so please get in touch...
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