October had a total of 16 rain-days, being wet and windy early and late in the month, with a dry 10-day period in the middle. Gales in early October blew in masses of sand, deeply burying the rich strandline vegetation at Ainsdale that I highlighted in the September notes. The associated 10m high-tides washed up drifts...
It was another eventful month for nature on the Sefton Coast. One of the main attractions was the amazingly diverse strandline flora that developed on the shore between Ainsdale and Birkdale; I can’t remember seeing anything like it before.
My month with nature started well when Joyce and David Jarvis showed me two flowering Broad-leaved Helleborines at Ainsdale National Nature Reserve. I hadn’t seen this orchid on the Sefton Coast since 2008. Other notable plants during the month included a small colony of Whorl-grass that I found on a freshwater seepage zone on Hightown...
Extreme heatwaves and prolonged spring and summer droughts are a predicted consequence of climate change. Fortunately, most of our sand-dune specialist flora and fauna seem able to cope at present, being adapted to life in harsh conditions. A loud hum preceded the arrival of two enormous, tropical-looking insects that crashed into the grass a few...