|
Point of Ayr lighthouse
Lion's mane jellyfish
|
We
arrived at Talacre at 1pm and ate some lunch in the car in the car-park while
waiting for the rain to end. We then
had a dry, though very overcast, afternoon to walk across the dunes to the Point
of Ayr and its lighthouse and explore the shore for shells. South from the Point the banks of the Dee
are entirely monopolised by sewage works, oil terminals and manufacturing,
but to the west there are broad sand beaches along the north coast of Wales. Alongside the initial path from the
village, which is little more than a cluster of cafés and bars to serve the
nearby caravan parks, there were huge stands of magnificent viper’s bugloss,
their intense blue dominating all else.
On the shore there was a good variety of bivalves on the sand recently
deposited by a particularly high tide, including many American piddocks, and
a large brown lion’s mane jellyfish. A
sprig of perennial glasswort had also been washed up, we do not know from
where, but looking quite fresh as though it had not come far, perhaps the Dee
Estuary. The lighthouse is conspicuous
red and white but now disused and locked up.
On the balcony stands a metal man.
The dune-slacks included shallow ponds dug for natterjack toads, of
which there were many tadpoles visible in the water. The main plant here and on the wet sandy
shores was brackish water-crowfoot, with some celery-leaved buttercup. Most of the large slacks were either too dry
or too dominated by coarse vegetation for much of interest, but there were a
few northern marsh orchids amidst the saltmarsh rush and large patches of
eyebright, Euphrasia nemorosa. The dry dunes, however, had many fine
pyramidal orchids and a little sea-holly, plus a few dense clusters of bloody
cranesbill that may well have been garden escapes like the patches of
Japanese rose and mixed red and white campions. We walked as far as the Gronant Dunes.
|
Viper's bugloss
Sea holly and rest-harrow
American piddock
|
No comments:
Post a Comment