Our warmer climes make for wildlife flourishing – even now
PROTRACTED mild spells in winter are becoming more regular but it is jarring when you find wild flowers in November that are normally at their best in early summer.
Dazzling yellow swathes of Kidney Vetch drape dune slopes in colour in June, then tend to fade quickly before setting seed.
They are a wild flower I typically associate with the hottest days, when dragonflies rattle by and Sand Lizards are at their most active.
Occasionally they will bloom again in later summer albeit in a far less exuberant fashion.
But a fresh specimen I came across last week on Ainsdale and Birkdale Sandhills Local Nature Reserve certainly hadn’t read the script.
Heading out to cut back Sea Buckthorn I looked down and there it was, blooming away, several bright yellow globes by the path side on a sheltered bank – and this more typical summer flower was not alone.
Each year it gets easier to find an increasing amount of our dune flora still in flower into the depths of winter, helped by a climate that is warming while still delivering extreme events on a regular basis.
Harebells, Red Clover, Evening Primrose, Ragwort and even Milkwort could all be found in flower last week and were showing no signs of fading.
The delicate Harebells are always a tonic, defiantly colourful despite winter’s approach. They shiver and dance in the slightest breeze.
Getting low down in the dunes is often the best tactic at this time of year. By lying down you see the coastline from a new perspective, even if you do risk a few strange looks and a bad case of mildew.
As I searched on my belly for the diminutive Petalwort at one favoured site I glanced sideways to admire a glowing orange Waxcap.
It was tiny but a most striking example of dune fungi.
Walking through I may have missed it, but at eye level it really stood out.
Some Waxcaps are poisonous so like all fungi it was worth treating with respect: look, but don’t touch!
This is the time of the Stonechat and one of these inquisitive birds chacked at me from a nearby stem.
They had a good breeding season on the coast this year, and mild winters make feeding easy for them: up to six are around the Green Sefton office at Ainsdale at the moment.
I got back to peering into the grass stems for Petalwort and was rewarded with a single specimen like a tiny lettuce, barely two millimetres across my first of the season.
These rare liverworts are a real indicator of dune health, but their tiny size makes them hard to find any discovery brings a smile (and damp knees).
So don’t worry if you see me face down on the sand when out on your exercise walk through the dunes. I haven’t lost it really; on the contrary I may just have found a Petalwort.
John works for Green Sefton, the Sefton Council service that brings together the coast & countryside, parks & green spaces, flooding & coastal erosion, risk management and grounds maintenance teams for a joined-up approach to the vital management, development and oversight of Sefton’s beautiful coastline, parks and green spaces. This column looks at the flora, fauna and history of the coastline, and the work carried out to protect it.