Category Archives: conservation

The drowning of the birches

Posted on April 29, 2026 by solwayshorewalker

If you cut into a peatbog, it bleeds … brown water. Peat is 90% water, taken up by the living sphagnum mosses that form the bog, and retained as they die and are compacted to form the basis of the … Continue reading →

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Snippet 16: A beautiful ‘flower’ on the Allonby shore

Posted on May 30, 2025 by solwayshorewalker

Tubularia: its delicate tentacles wafting in the current, its stalks swaying gently, its body glowing crimson-red despite the sediment-laden tide. It’s not a plant, it’s not a sea-weed: it’s an animal which is related to sea-anemones and jellyfish, and a … Continue reading →

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The Highly Protected Marine Area of Allonby Bay: the story so far…

Posted on June 18, 2024 by solwayshorewalker

‘We should be excited that Allonby is the first inshore HPMA in England! It’s something to celebrate.’ Indeed it is! It was a small get-together – only five of us had come along – to discuss how much we knew … Continue reading →

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‘Compelling and interacting stories’: the inhabitants of a Solway smallholding

Posted on April 1, 2024 by solwayshorewalker

“A list of animals … could become tiresome, but it is necessary to grasp the true richness of nature. Think of it as not so much an inventory as a catalogue leading to compelling and interacting stories…”  (Richard Fortey, 2016. … Continue reading →

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A Solway smallholding: update 2023

Posted on October 26, 2023 by solwayshorewalker

Six o’clock, and the rooks and jackdaws are wheeling in the darkening sky, shrieking and cawing in a cacophony of sound, their attention focussed on the garden below. The football-rattle clatter of vigilant magpies adds another layer of sound. Like … Continue reading →

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WeBS counts and webbed feet

Posted on March 11, 2023 by solwayshorewalker

“You can tell barnie poo from pinks’ poo because the pinks’ is greenish,” Frank bends down and points to the soft cylinders of pinkfoot goose poo that are scattered on the cropped turf. “Barnies’ are brownish. But they all have … Continue reading →

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A Solway small-holding: an update

Posted on December 24, 2021 by solwayshorewalker

I last wrote about our small-holding in NW Cumbria in May 2018, shortly after we had planted our ‘Three-score-years-and ten’ wood, including a hedge and a couple of thickets, on one of our fields. The trees have now had four … Continue reading →

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Quicklime: Hot Mix

Posted on December 1, 2021 by solwayshorewalker

It’s May 2021, the latest lockdown for Covid has been eased and crossing the Border between Scotland and England is once more permissible, so I drive North to Canonbie where Alex Gibbons has his yard. I’ve known Alex since 2016, … Continue reading →

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Grazing and Growth on Rockcliffe Marsh

Posted on October 25, 2020 by solwayshorewalker

“At Rockcliffe [Marsh] it’s about the birds, it’s about the saltmarsh as a vegetation community; it’s about the geological interest in the development of saltmarshes. Many other saltmarshes have been enclosed and changed because of agricultural methods, but the Solway … Continue reading →

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The acronyms’ stories: imagine.

Posted on June 11, 2020 by solwayshorewalker

‘Alphabet soup’: AONB, EMS, MPA, MCZ, NNR, SAC, SPA, SSSI – how many more of these acronyms for conservation designations can you recall? Do you know what they mean? (If you don’t – and not many people do – you … Continue reading →

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