Wind in the willows, what happened to Peter Rabbit Thursday 2nd March 2017

I spent a few hours at the Morfa Berwig LNR this morning, with blue skies and sunshine, and a bit of a breeze.

The flower buds on this Willow were just pushing out and blowing in the breeze

After the recent rains the site is wetter than usual, with all of the ponds looking in great condition.

With a couple of conservation grazing ponies on site I enjoyed checking out the ponds, disappointingly though no sign of any frog or toad activity.

There were a good variety of birds around with 17 species seen or heard, the best of which were Kingfisher, Water Rail and Cettis Warbler.

European Kingfisher

Signs of mammal activity were confined to a Short-tailed Field Vole under one of the refugia, and signs of a Rabbit nest having been dug out and the occupant eaten.

More interestingly was it eaten by a Fox or an Otter?

Rabbit nest dug out by a predator

Mixed day Wednesday 1st March 2017

With a 9.0m tide at around 08:00hrs there was only one place to be this morning, stood on top of a sand dune looking out onto Carmarthen Bay.

After a stormy day yesterday, this morning was much calmer and despite there not being a huge movement of birds, Three Red-throated Diver a few hundred Common Scoter and flocks of Golden Plover, Dunlin, Sanderling and Ringed Plover made for a decent sea watch.

A quick dash around to the information shelter with the marsh in full flood gave up Teal c50, Wigeon c10, Mallard c15, Shelduck 13 Curlew c6 plus Snipe, Redshank and distant Oystercatchers and a lone male Pintail.

Idyllic

Then it was off to do a radio interview for BBC Radio Wales, on the Strandline Beetle, and clean beaches. The broadcast was only about 30 seconds long and they edited out the important bit about leaving driftwood on the beach, but they did emphasise the importance of leaving large pieces of plastic/old tyres on the beach as habitat for the beetle.

Then I met up with the Wednesday gang and started the final phase of Dormouse Box construction.....

Dormouse box Production line and finished ? box

Saving the beetle part 2 Friday 24th February 2017

Well Storm Doris has left us relatively unscathed, there has been no damage caused on the reserve, in fact she has done some good with a lot of drift wood now exposed on the beach as well as a few new inundations of sand into the embryo dunes, all making more habitat available to The Strandline Beetle when they emerge from hibernation.

Top, a new area of sand blow inundation

Below,  a lot of drift wood has appeared after the storm

As well as relying on nature I have posted the Welsh Governments advice notice regarding the beetle and driftwood on our beaches; it's worth remembering of course that Cefn Sidan Beach has the full protection as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

We can but try!

With a huge improvement in the weather today I saw or rather heard my first queen Bumblebee, (she flew into the side window of the van). It was probably a White-tailed Bumblebee Bombus  lucorum, (thanks Barry)

First Bumblebee of the year, The White-tailed Bumblebee.

Saving the "beetle" Wednesday 22nd February 2017

What a better way to spend my birthday than being out in the damp drizzle that was Pembrey Burrows LNR.

Wednesday = volunteer day, the day when our little team meet to spend the day being useful, doing all those conservation management jobs that just would probably not get done, most days I am on my own so having other like-minded folk to talk too makes a change, cattle are not great conversationalists!!!!!

My previous posts have highlighted the plight of "The Strandline Beetle", today we made great progress in the mitigation plan to attempt to slow their decline.

The idea is to place 1m long logs with chainsaw cuts made along the length to provide a safe cwtch for the beetle to hide in.

First cut down your tree and cut it to length

Gather your logs

Cut the cwtch

The finished logs, waiting to be positioned in the spring

Its too soon to put the logs on the beach/embryo dunes but when we do I'll post an update.

Fences and the one footed Oystercatcher Thursday 16th February 2017

Work has started on the completion of the fence around grazing field 1, the guys doing the work make it look so easy, well easier than when we have to keep repairing sections by hand.

The right tools make for light work!

The machine has switched from banging posts in to straining the wire! so much easier than the "by hand" method.... but eh we love it !!

I walked the eastern end of the reserve on what was a very spring like morning with Skylarks in song and a noticeable presence of Meadow Pipits and Linnets, there haven't been many birds around lately.

Another sign of spring is the presence of Common Shelduck, they really should be one of our breeding species but there was no evidence last season that they bred, maybe this year?

A good sized flock of Ringed Plover (76) and a huge flock of Oystercatchers, around 4250 including a rather poorly bird which had only one foot, it flew off ok but was decidedly lop-sided. A 1st winter Yellow Legged Gull was a good bird to find and "new" for the bird list.

Morfa Berwig, work day Wednesday 15th February 2017

Today the conservation ranger team was at Morfa Berwig LNR near Bynea.

This new LNR on a mix of brownfield and reclaimed wet meadow has great potential but it is a wet site.

Today we worked on a few different tasks, clearing fallen timber from one of the ponds, clearing access routes, installing new information panels and weather proofing the boundary signs opening up resting areas and building refugia.

The reserve has easy public access but decent footwear is useful, as winter fades into spring the area will provide good bird watching especially during the first few weeks of migration, later there will be good number of dragonflies, including Brachytron pratense the Hairy Dragonfly  last year Ischnura pumilio, the Small Blue-tail was found using the ephemeral pools.

Clearing small Willow from the track to a grazing field

Stone refugia, hopefully amphibians will find it useful

A south facing mound of rubble and decaying vegetation opened up as a basking site

While we were on the reserve one of the team, Neil, who happens to be the county mammal recorder, went off to do some monitoring.

Monitoring??

Choices, Natural, Semi-natural or unnatural Saturday 11th February 2017

I have been doing a lot of pondering since Monday, when I went to a Llanelli Naturalists AGM and listened to a talk by Barry Stewart on the status of the Strandline Beetle Eurynebria complanata, and having read in detail his report to Natural Resources Wales,  (I will refer to E complanata, as the beetle in the rest of the blog).

The beetle was recently reclassified as endangered following a decline which now finds its UK range restricted to a few special areas of Carmarthen Bay,

.

The Strandline Beetle, Eurynebria complanata (photo VH)

The beetle is closely associated with strandlines and sandy beaches backed by the right sort of sand dune and the resultant vegetation community.

Ecologically I assume the beetle evolved to survive the natural processes of the dynamic and shifting patterns of beach, strandline and dune formation relying on purely natural objects under which to seek refuge.

The state of our oceans, and thus our beaches in the 21st century are generally much less natural and more semi natural, by which I mean that there are vast amounts of man made objects to be found lying on the beaches, a look at any of the eroding dune faces along Cefn Sidan will reveal any number of plastic compound objects in the stratification of the dune face, perhaps a clear example of the anthropocene epoch of geological time!

Now the beetle has adapted to make use of many plastic objects as well as tyres old sofa cushions, polystyrene  etc. Seeing these objects on a beach is to many ugly, unsightly and must be removed.

NO! if only it was so simple.

Yes it is depressing to see the vast amounts of plastic bottles of all shapes and sizes washed up, sometimes into great piles, on our beaches along with old fishing nets, rope as well as more domestic rubbish like dustbin. But before we act we must stop and consider the outcome we really desire.

There is a real and significant risk that we will lose this distinctive ground beetle from our fauna unless action is taken very soon, this will need to consider the level of "cleanliness" some of our beaches can tolerate, this will need to include careful monitoring of the amount of natural materials being removed by the public, usually driftwood, and how fires are controlled on the beach by the party animals of the area.

There will need to be an acceptance that "useful rubbish" will need to be left insitu on the beach to provide shelter for the beetle, especially where the quantities of natural material seem to be declining, I walked from CE52 to the "nose" at Pembrey Burrows, (2.7km), today and saw very little wood on the beach, certainly considerably less than this time last year,; maybe its buried under the ever shifting sands of Cefn Sidan, or the currents have changed as a result of the accretion of sand on the beach mid way along that particular section of beach?

This view of the beach between CE52 and the Nose was typical NO NATURAL DEBRIS

On a brighter note there is a plan!, this plan is to supplement the amount of wood on the beach, carefully control any "beach cleans" and engage with beach users to help them understand the part they play in the survival of the Strandline Beetle, Eurynebria complanata.

The fight is on................

I will come back to this hot topic over the coming months...............