Not quite to plan

Furber's Scrapyard and Moss Lane Flood Fields, Wednesday 17th July 2019

A couple of year's ago Natural England and Shropshire Wildlife Trust were awarded funding to acquire land abutting Whixall Moss to enhance the well-being of the moss. Part of the land acquired was Furber's Scrapyard.

Needless to say on acquisition the scrapyard was full of scrap, mainly from cars. In addition there were the buildings and other objects associated with the business. The first job was to clear it.

Clearance was completed a little while ago and the site now awaits work to make it completely safe to accept all visitors.

We were given permission to visit as long as we were aware that some hazards remain and took care to avoid them.

The other land acquired were areas surrounding the scrap yard and fields opposite on the other side of the Llangollen canal which were going to be the focus of the second part of the day - but more about that later.

The first part of the plan for the day was to park in the Morris' Bridge car park.

But it was full.

Work was being done on the canal and there was a Natural England work party close by. Their vehicles had occupied most of the car park. Other vehicles were on the verge outside the car park.

We managed to get a couple of cars in but the others had to park on the access road to the site. Not ideal, but we were not aware of anyone needing access on the day.

Eventually we were ready to make our way to the scrapyard. This involved passing this sign:

We had been warned … again!

The verge of the access track (designated as a bridleway and public footpath) was lush and encouraged us to take a look at it for things of interest.

We finally made it to our first objective. We were met with a vast expanse of concrete and sparse vegetation where the scrap had been cleared with patches of rough vegetation  surrounded by trees.

Curiously part of the site had been used to dump birch that had, presumably, been cleared from the Moss. I do not know what will happen to this.

Next to the concrete that greeted us was a large patch of rough vegetation and this drew our initial attention.

Sitting on top of a thistle was a factory fresh Small tortoiseshell.

A curiosity was a couple of bulrushes that where growing just off the edge of the immense concrete slab possibly as a result of rain water run-off from the concrete creating a small damp habitat.

An early find that took us a little by surprise in view of the "poor" habitat was a blue bug nymph:

Photograph: David Williams

We later found an adult. Or rather it found us as it landed at my feet just as we were leaving the site.

A couple of moth larvae were found which have been identified by the county moth recorder:

Common marbled carpet:

Photograph: David Williams

And Canary-shouldered thorn.

The vacuum sampler was used often in the morning and was by far the easiest way to seach in this habitat. One of its finds was a Denticulate leatherbug.

Photograph: David Williams

A fairly early lunch was taken before we dispersed to explore the further reaches of the site which had, in the main, been covered in scrap until recently. It was quite remarkable that we found a good number of species but its proximity to Whixall Moss probably helped the invertebrate fauna to move in.

The moss-side edge of the site yielded a couple of dragon- and damsel-flies:

A black darter:

Photograph: David Williams

And an Emerald damselfly.

Photograph: David Williams

Next two grasshoppers for the price of one!

The insect at the top of the photograph is a male Meadow grasshopper; the one at the bottom is a male Common green grasshopper.

The site has a few outcrops of denser vegetation including willow presumably where there was less inhibition from the contents of the yard.

And one mound to remind us of its former use.

In addition to the Small tortoiseshell we saw quite a few butterflies including a beautifully bright yellow Brimstone but one that posed for a photograph was a very well travelled and worn Painted lady.

And for our final insect another curiosity. Cinnabar larva - not on Ragwort which is the normal foodplant but on Colt's-foot.

According to the Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland by Waring and Townsend the larvae of Cinnabar are found mainly on Common Ragwort, other ragworts, groundsels and occasionally on Colt's-foot. Well this was one of those occasions.

Time to move on.

But before we left we had time to admire this piece of art at the second entrance to the site:

Photograph: David Williams

No doubt the artist has prepared a huge script detailing his/her every thought in the process of producing this desirable piece.

Or, perhaps, it was just too difficult to remove it.

The plan was to spend some time in the flood fields either side of Moss Lane on the other side of the Llangollen Canal to the scrapyard.

But they were flooded!!

Another part of the plan for the day had gone awry.

As the amount of water present made access difficult we contented ourselves with a bit of bird-watching before returning to the cars and heading home after another satisfactory if slightly disrupted day.

My thanks to Shropshire Wildlife Trust for giving us permission to do what we enjoy doing and to the photographer David Williams for his excellent pictures.