Chris has been out and about again, read on to hear more of his adventures.....
Its old news now that winter has arrived at the Firth of Forth, but just as the season fully turned, I decided to bring in the camera-trap (see my last blog) for a look. Since our initial failure to capture a good still image of the badgers (we know they are out there), I set the camera to record video instead... that way I was sure to glean a few seconds of conclusive badger footage.
Unfortunately that wasn’t to be the case, but having watched my way through dozens of videos of idly blowing grass, I decided to share a recording of this curious young fox, one of several non-badgers that made a few repeat visits to the camera.
I’ve also been spending more time back out on the saltmarsh, a scarce habitat locally, but an important one that contributes to the designation of the area as a Special Protected Area (SPA) and Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) within the Inner Forth Futurescape . It is also a habitat suffering from a range of man-made and environmental pressures, which is why I am going to highlight another of the specialised plants that can survive there.
The Orache family of plants don’t all live by the seaside, but a good number of them have evolved to be considerably salt and drought tolerant. The halophytic (salt-loving) species have bladder-like salt-sinks in their leaves, and so the salt is removed from the plant through grazing or leaf shedding.
My favourite part of the plant appears in late summer after flowering when the seeds develop in small structures called bracteoles which can be seen in the close-up picture below.
Fig 1: Atriplex species (Orache) showing spear-shaped leaves and pink bracteoles.
These plants are annuals, and will die back with the winter weather, but in my next blog I’ll post about some plants that keep the saltmarsh evergreen...