Sefton Coast

Sep

01

2016

Dr Phil Smith: Wildlife Notes August 2016

By BDeed

A rather unremarkable month for weather, August had average rainfall and a couple of short warm spells but was largely characterised by cool windy conditions. My frequent visits to the dunes revealed a surprising lack of large insects, especially dragonflies and butterflies. Thus, after a gale the previous day, I called in at our premier dragonfly site in the Birkdale dunes on 8^th and was horrified to find not a single dragonfly or damselfly. This seems to have been a widespread phenomenon, local moth trappers also reporting a poor season.

Aug

19

2016

Botanical interest of Crosby Coastal Park, Sefton Coast, Merseyside

By BDeed

Philip H. Smith, August 2016

Introduction

Aug

04

2016

Dr Phil Smith: Wildlife Notes July 2016

By BDeed

Apart from a one-day heatwave on 19^th when temperatures reached an oppressive 32^oC, the month’s weather was unexceptional. Rainfall seems to have been about average but it was often cooler than expected in the first two and the last weeks. Predictably, the Devil’s Hole slack gradually dried up, though there was still a little surface water in the deepest parts (see below).

Jul

13

2016

Dr Phil Smith: Wildlife Notes June 2016

By BDeed

Although June was wetter than normal in most parts of the country, this was not the case here. The first rain did not fall until 10^th and we missed most of the thundery downpours that caused flooding further south and east. Nevertheless, a few heavy showers and more unsettled conditions later in the month maintained enough surface-water in sand-dune wetlands for our Natterjack Toads to breed successfully in several places.

Jun

06

2016

Dr Phil Smith: Wildlife Notes May 2016

By BDeed

With small amounts of rain on only nine days during the month, May reinforced a statistically significant trend of lower spring rainfall here since 2000. A recent paper in the International Journal of Climatology confirms this trend for the UK as a whole, linking it to atmospheric pressure changes over Greenland brought about by warming in this part of the Arctic, which then impacts the north Atlantic Jet-stream.

Oct

12

2015

Dr Phil Smith: Wildlife Notes September 2015

By BDeed

Although measurable rain fell on ten days during the month, quantities were very small and temperatures above average. September therefore ended up as another desperately dry month, the duneland ground water-table being the lowest recorded since the drought of the mid -1990s.

Sep

04

2015

Dr Phil Smith: Wildlife notes August 2015

By BDeed

August was a rather cool and unsettled month, though rainfall amounts were no more than average, contrasting with record deluges in the south. The rain that did fall soon evaporated making little impact on the depleted water-table.

Jul

02

2015

Summary: Sefton Coast Isle of Man Cabbage surveys, 2015

By BDeed

Coincya monensis monensis (Dr Phil Smith)

All the known Sefton sites for the British endemic Isle of Man Cabbage (Coincya monensis ssp. monensis) were visited in late May/early June 2015 and numbers of plants counted. At Crosby Marine Park, where sand was removed from a dune ridge for a 2011 coast protection scheme, 1361 plants were found on the extracted ridge while 211 were counted on the outer shore dunes that had been used as a donor site for a translocation in 2011.

Apr

07

2015

Dr Phil Smith: Wildlife Notes March 2015

By BDeed

A pattern of dry spring months has been evident for over a decade, March having only 65% of normal rainfall in England and Wales. An unexpected deluge came on 12th-13th but a small recovery in the height of the dune water-table in mid-month was subsequently lost. The ponds at Freshfield Dune Heath Nature Reserve remained extremely low but still attracted lots of Common Frogs.

Oct

01

2013