Wildlife and flowers in the dunes

I've heard it said that sand isn't much good for growing things, as it doesn't hold any nutrients. Here's a few shots of the sand dunes near me

Here we have some very brightly coloured creatures in some wild grass and flowers.


Same again really


All sorts of things thriving in the sand. The red thing is a young homo-sapiens.


There is an abundance of butterflies and moths on the dunes. They come in all different colours, including some that I've never seen anywhere else I've ever been, but they are abundant on the dunes. Here's one of my personal favourites. Unfortunately it didn't pose for the camera quite long enough. It was on the yellow flower when I took aim, but flew away just as I took the shot. I'm on about the blue thing just heading for the top of the picture. Also available in bright green.


The dunes are entirely made of sand. Believe it or not I can remember when there wasn't this much flora there. When I was a kid the sands were still drifting quite a lot, so it was hard for anything to colonise it. Gradually over the years the wild plants have colonised the more stable patches, bound the ground up, and migrated out thus stabilising the the surrounding sand. This is more like how I remember it when I was little. Here, we're on the last wall of dunes before the sea, so the patch most exposed to the elements. Give it a few years and this will be all bound up and colonised too.

 

A lovely array of flora and fauna that is so unique to the dunes. And I am amazed at the intensity of that little blue butterfly. Hope someone can ID it for us,
thank you Clue
Jenny

 

Cool

The Moth looks like a Six Spot Burnet. The Butterfly is probably a Common Blue, bit far north for the Adonis Blue.

If you saw a green one the same size that was probably The Green hairstreak.

Plant wise, I think I can see Sea Pea and Evening Primrose.

 

I don't know sea pea, but definitely evening primrose is present. Also birds foot trefoil, various clovers, melilot (I think), and some tiny pink orchid like things. Plenty of other stuff too.

Not far from there is the 'slag heaps', stony/rocky ground made out of the dumped by product of steel making (I think its calcium and manganese rich if I remember right from my days as a trainee plater many years ago). There all sorts of different things grow. I can't name most of them but red valerian grows in abundance there.

 

Dear Clue,
if you get some spare time, I would be very interested in seeing the flora and fauna that now inhabits the slag heaps. It would be interesting to see what things like a calcium and manganese diet,
thank you,
Jenny

 

Righty oh then. I might pop over there today if I get chance.

 

Ooooh, thank you Clue,
Jenny

 

I've been out. Took 88 pics. Just trying to whittle the number down a bit by deleting the rubbish ones and any that are more or less duplicates.

 

Boiled it down to 37 pics. Here goes.

The hot dry spell (summer) has taken its toll on plants in the very, very shallow soil.


I wonder if its possible to fool our resident geologist, @Zigs, with this stone? probably not.

 

I think we'll stop down from heap number 1, and head into what used to be a marsh when I was a kid. Its still damp now but rarely full of water. Nothing at all do with the golf club just a few hundred yards away putting drains in a few years ago, around the same time half the ponds mysteriously dried up.



{Silverweed, Woody Nightshade & Hemp Agrimony}

 

Some more.


Look carefully. I was aiming for the bright blue damselfly resting on the piece of grass.


{Lovage, Knapweed, Ragwort, a damselfly}

 

A few more damp ground ones before we head onto the next slag heap.

 

I like the dried out looking flowers in this set.


Vipers Bugloss I believe. It wouldn't keep still long enough to focus at such close range.

All the willowherbs have pink flowers don't they? Not this one, pink and vivid blue.

Next we'll climb up there and see what we can see.


{Carline Thistle? Ladies Bedstraw and a slag heap}

 

The view from the top of the mound. That lake/pond used to terrify me as a kid. It used to be bright green and steam used to come off it. The reason being that the water that filled it was waste cooling water from the works, and was full of sulphur. Environmental legislation has since been tightened up a lot, and the water is no longer a vivid green, and stuff lives in there now, but the drastic change in flora suggests that years of sulphur deposits has had an effect. This is the only place on the dunes/slag heaps where bracken thrives. I believe bracken loves acid soil.


I've always loved these little flowers, but not sure what they are. Loosestrife? Toadflax?


{Toadflax, nearly called my first Daughter that}

 

A few more, then we'll head back to Gothilda and go home for tea.


That crane is getting a bit cheeky, looking at Gotty like that. Gotty isn't scared though. She'll easily fight the great lanky crane if it tries anything.