Welsh biodiversity: Kenfig NNR

04 Saturday Jun 2016

Tags

biodiversity, Kenfig National Nature Reserve, Kenfig Pool, sand dunes, Wales Biodiversity Week

Today marks the beginning of Wales Biodiversity Week, which this year runs from 4 to 12 June, so it seems appropriate to celebrate one of the most biodiverse places in Wales, indeed in the whole of Britain, Kenfig National Nature Reserve. Kenfig is primarily a huge undulating sand dune system, though the reserve encompasses a range of habitats, from lagoons and salt marshes through bogs and fens to broad-leaved deciduous woodland. And Kenfig Pool is the largest freshwater lake in south Wales.

160604 Kenfig NNR (7)

Nature lovers can bird-watch from the hides around the pool, where damsel and dragonflies also abound during the summer months. For the plant-lover an estimated 550 species, including the rare Fen Orchid, grow within the reserve, and some very rare fungi make their home amongst the marram grass. If critters are your thing, there are bees and butterflies, (pink!) grasshoppers and weevils, newts and lizards, and there are even reports of otters, though you’d have to be exceptionally lucky to see them.

160604 Kenfig NNR (5)

Kenfig is a shining example of the biodiversity to be found in a coastal environmental and well worth a visit or six!

Not just a load of bullocks!

05 Tuesday Apr 2016

Posted by sconzani in animals, nature

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

bullocks, cattle, land management, Merthyr Mawr National Nature Reserve, sand dunes, Yellow dung fly

I was a little surprised last Saturday to see bullocks grazing in the Merthyr Mawr National Nature Reserve but it’s all part of the Countryside Council for Wales’s management plan. Research and monitoring have shown that the sand dune ecosystem needs to be dynamic – the dunes need to be exposed, the sands able to move with wind, tide and storm, in order to function as effective flood defences and to maintain the right environment for the rare plants and invertebrates that live there.

160405 bullocks (5)

So, some of the grasses and shrubs that had previously stabilised the dunes have been removed by earthmoving equipment and, to prevent the dune system developing into woodland, cattle are being allowed to graze parts of the reserve at certain times of the year. The plan is to maintain sparsely vegetated dunes and open grassland so that the rare species that were being choked towards extinction will be rejuvenated.

One additional benefit for the photographer – the bullocks are very photogenic, and I’m sure the Yellow dung flies I saw on Saturday are pretty happy with the plan as well.

160405 Yellow dung fly

Merthyr Mawr National Nature Reserve

03 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by sconzani in fungi, nature

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Merthyr Mawr National Nature Reserve, national nature reserve, sand dunes, SSSI

What a marvellous place this is! Yesterday, I joined several of my friends from the Glamorgan Fungi Club for a foray up, down and around the rolling sand dunes of the Merthyr Mawr National Nature Reserve. You might think the words fungi and sand dunes are incompatible but you’d be wrong. Though we didn’t find the somewhat elusive fungi we were seeking, we did find several other interesting species, as well as an assortment of the more common critters: ladybirds and butterflies, hoverflies and bees, a glow worm larva and a lizard.

Daedaleopsis confragosa Blushing bracket (1)

The dunes provide the perfect habitat for some rare insect species (the Dune tiger beetle, a rare weevil, the Solitary wasp, the Cuckoo bee and the Mining bee), and are also home to many rare and endangered plants, including two species of Marsh-orchid.

160403 merthyr mawr (2)

These dunes are the second highest in Europe, and, as well as providing a home to wildlife, they have also seen their fair share of human activity over the millennia: everything from Mesolithic stone axes and Neolithic pottery to Bronze Age burial chambers and Roman coins have been found here. It is a place to explore again and again, with each season offering the visitor something special and superb.