September Nature Notes from Pete Lambert

Nature Notes – September 2011

At long last the final camping gizmo was put back into the camping cupboard, and the warm mist of remembering took me back down the Anglesey lanes. Wall brown, Meadow brown, Gatekeeper and Red Admiral butterflies had risen as I pedalled past. Small delicate micro-moths took short hesitant flights when disturbed and a Small Copper butterfly had a narrow squeak with my rolling front tyre. This very pretty small creature enjoys flowery places though its larval food-plants are the undistinguished docks and sorrels. The Small Copper has dark chocolate hind under-wings fringed with a bright orange ripple and the forewings are a kind of negative with a striking orange centre marked with black spots and edged with brown. When the adult is in the early stages of its flying life it is a very tidy butterfly which cannot be said for location that day.

The untidy hedges of Ynys Mon do provide plenty of colour, the aged wrinkly leaves of Woods age are paired below spikes of tiny yellow flowers, bold purple ‘Hardheads’ of the Knapweed, Red Campion still in flower, flaming nodding spikes of Montbretia [a man made hybrid though to my delight this was everywhere], button blooms of rich yellow Tansy and green rosettes of what at a glance looked like Rusty back fern added depth to the hedge plant parade. The hedge shrubs of hawthorn or blackthorn invariably grew on top of banks or loose dry walls inter-filled with soil. There were none of the unbearably neat, flailed and tamed hedges here, but an older, wilder and unruly network of field divisions.

I was on my way to Cemlyn Bay to visit the Tern colony, apparently the third largest Sandwich tern colony in the UK. Terns like to roost and breed on shingle beaches and here at Cemlyn an artificial shingle ridge has been maintained by the North Wales Wildlife Trust and the National Trust. I had not seen a tern colony before and heard it first before seeing the busy thin winged birds feeding. Arctic Terns have reddish beaks and a neat grey, black and white plumage. Sandwich Terns are our biggest resident tern, my best views were of individuals returning from the open sea with a fish clasped firmly in their black and yellow tipped beak, a rakish crest clear to see, flicking cavalier like from their aerodynamic heads. Around the lagoon Oystercatchers hung around, their simple black white body pattern and bright red-orange beak reminding me of the bad penguin in The Wrong Trousers. A solitary Dabchick or Little Grebe pottered around another pool close by, with the ubiquitous Coots in the far distance.

The coast is a harsh place for plants to survive, adapting as they must to inundation by salt water, coated in briny spray or blown flat by unrelenting winds. On the banks and salt marsh flats I encountered the sea hardened cousins of our milder local plants. Sea mayweed, tall bobbly spikes of Sea Arrowgrass, the maritime Rush and the rubbery Spear leaved orache were easily found. Each subtly evolved to cope with the stress imposed by saline exposure. One of our commonest groups of native plants are the plantains, tolerant of a wide variety of soil types and trampling, they are found everywhere. Out of the six UK plantain species I found four together, Greater, Ribwort, Sea and Bucksthorn plantain. The last two very much associated with coastal locations and surprisingly main roads and motorways, the connection being salt in this case winter cast rock salt. Each plantain has a rotund spike of very tiny flowers best appreciated with a hand lens, that day they were shyly at their best.

Much of bays history as a wildlife site is tied to the story of a wealthy eccentric bird enthusiast, Captain Vivian Hewitt who first came to Cemlyn Bay in the 1930’s. He constructed a dam and weir, replacing tidal salt-marsh with a large and permanent lagoon which he intended as a refuge for wildfowl. He also had a scheme to nurture an area of woodland within the grounds of Bryn Aber, his home, to attract smaller birds. To this end he began construction of an imposing double wall, which was intended both as a wind-brake for the trees, and a means for observing the birds – the gap between the two walls had viewing holes. After Captain Hewitt’s death the house was left to his housekeeper’s family, but the walls themselves remain, and lend the site its mysterious, even foreboding presence. I enjoyed and treasured my day at Cemlyn and only yesterday did I clear away the last dried stem of rush, plucked and tucked in a forgotten pocket till now.

Happy wildlife spotting, Pete.  

If you would like to share your wildlife encounters please feel welcome to email me at petewoodman@thewoods12.fsnet.co.uk