Beach cleansing Friday 4th August 2017
After the strong WSW winds and the accompanying rain the Cefn Sidan beach looks remarkably clean with little exposed rubbish. Not sure where the Strandline Beetles are at the moment as "refuges" on the beach are very few and far between. A clean Cefn Sidan I found another dead Gannet plus quite a few Barrel Jellyfish, I'm often asked "what happens to them?" well from what I saw today a lot of them provide a huge meal for the various invertebrates on the beach such as sandhoppers, there were thousands of sandhoppers on the open beach this morning many of them apparently feeding on the jellyfish The dune flora is, now, perhaps past its best although there are some interesting plants to be found including this thistle, which even when fresh looks dead, its the Carline Thistle. Carline Thistle In the brief morning sunshine I did see a Painted Lady butterfly , h opefully a spell of settled weather will arrive soon, then it w