Coast Walking (Wales): Whiteford National Nature Reserve 16 May 2016

We drove to the car park for Whiteford NNR at the west end of Llanmadoc, having stopped for Welsh cakes at the excellent village shop. We walked down the road to Cwm Ivy, where the banks were attractive with Bluebell, Primrose, and Soft Shield-fern. This was the first time we had started the coast walk as early as late spring, and it was a good time to appreciate many of the Gower flowers. The path from Cwm Ivy passed a sand-covered slope covering limestone rocks. This was full of flowers, such as Bluebell, Cowslip, Hairy Rock-cress and Common Birdsfoot-trefoil; we also found Changing Forget-me-not. Despite the cool breeze we were able to see a Dingy Skipper here, as well as Common Blue. A path led past a house and along the east side of a Maritime Pine plantation that covered this part of Whiteford dunes, with marshy fields on our right. These had been flooded last year by the sea, breaching a sea-wall along which the coast path used to run. There were Yellow Iris, Scurvy-grass, Sea Rush, Sea Club-rush, Meadowsweet and Celery-leaved Buttercup. Past the plantation more open dunes with small slacks had ever-present Creeping Willow (in flower or just going over), lots of Bulbous Buttercup, Slender Trefoil, Great Horsetail, Common Storksbill, a few Twayblade, frequent clumps of Stinking Iris and, it being May, Hawthorn in flower. In a wet spot we found a few Creeping Buttercups with distinctive brown stripes down the centre of the sepals. Common Heath moths were flying. After nearly 3km we reached the far end of the sand spit, and reached the fore-dunes with Sea Holly, Sea Milkwort, Sea Plantain, Sea Spurge, Seablite and Sea Rocket. We saw one plant of Sea Stock. To the NW, surrounded by sea, was a small lighthouse. We turned south along the sandy beach, with stony ground to the seaward for a while, but plenty of common shells cast up with many Sea Potatoes. We picked up the egg-case of a Small-spotted Cat-shark. A Cockchafer had got stranded here, having wandered off the beaten track. Eventually the beach became all sand and we crossed it back to the dunes, at the edge of which were numerous fast-moving Dune Tiger-beetles. There appears to be no sand deposition in this area anymore and once the front dune slope was climbed we found ourselves in well-established turf, excellent for a lunch break. We sat among Kidney Vetch, Mouse-ear Hawkweed, Sand Catstail, Sand Sedge, Portland Spurge, Seaside Pansy, Rest-harrow, Burnet Rose, Rue-leaved Saxifrage, Whitlow-grass, abundant Hairy Rock-cress, Sea Clover, Heath Woodrush ssp. congesta, more Bulbous Buttercup, Milkworts of all hues from white to pink to blue, and the small form of Soft Brome, ssp thominei. There were small patches of Heath Dog-violet, and of Common Vetch, one patch of which had entirely white flowers. The lower leaves of kidney vetch often had the large blotch mines of the moth Aproaerema anythyllidella. Common blues flitted around. There were Grass Eggar moth caterpillars, conspicuously white- and orange-haired, which feed on a variety of plants but here seemed to be on sea clover, at one of their few sites in Wales. On bare sand male Coastal Silver-stiletto Flies were facing off in competition for territory and Hairy Sand-wasps were hunting for caterpillar prey. We walked south through the centre of the dunes, visiting many damp slacks, the best of which had a few Early Marsh Orchids coming into flower and leaf rosettes of what would probably be Southern Marsh Orchid. There were a few patches of rounded pale green leaves that would be Round-leaved Wintergreen. One dry sandy bank had a large group of the diminutive crucifer Hutchinsia, an early flowerer now entirely in seed with dense panicles of tiny oval seed-pods. Barer sandy areas had Houndstongue. At the south end we came across some Common Gromwell and Bloody Cranesbill. Back at the edge of the saltmarsh we flushed a group of half a dozen Shelduck. We returned to Cwm Ivy and to Cwm Ivy Woods, a Glamorgan Naturalists Trust reserve. There was a problem with invasive Three-cornered Leek here, but still plenty of interest with Ramsons, Early Purple Orchid, Moschatel, Wood Anemone, Bluebell, Primrose and a great deal of Dog’s Mercury. A path led down to the bottom of the wood and along the northern edge, from which we took another path returning to the top of the steep wooded slope and across fields back into Llanmadoc along a rough stony track.		Creeping buttercup with striped sepals Dune tiger-beetle
Sandy turf over limestone rocks, south end of Whiteford NNR Hutchinsia in seed	Marsh area Coastal silver-stiletto flies Egg-case of small-spotted cat-shark