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.
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.
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.
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.
Salix × doniana on Ainsdale Sand Dunes National Nature Reserve,
October 2013
Philip H. Smith, Patricia A. Lockwood & David Mercer
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