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Category Archives: conservation
A Solway small-holding
Yesterday I stood leaning on the pitchfork by the glowing ash-pile, just looking around at the trees and the hedges and our sheep. Two weeks ago, on a blue, still morning, there had been a sound like a gun-shot from … Continue reading
Posted in conservation, farming, smallholding
Tagged pond, sheep, small-holding, springs, woodland
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Tracking Triops, the elusive Tadpole Shrimp
In August, after the long weeks of cloudless blue skies, and heat that shimmered over the cracked mud of the merse, the rain came. The jet stream had looped into another orientation, and the rain fell day after day for … Continue reading
Posted in conservation, saltmarshes, wetlands
Tagged rare crustacea, serendipity, tadpole shrimps, Triops
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Recording the Solway’s amazing nature: a guest post by Deborah Muscat
Why we need to pay attention to the other living species with whom we share this area, and identify and record them. My thanks to Deborah Muscat, Manager of the Cumbria Biodiversity Data Centre based in Carlisle, for writing this … Continue reading
Posted in conservation, Guest Posts
Tagged biodiversity, recording wildlife, volunteers
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What’s a clay dabbin?
“The first thing people do is stroke the walls – it’s tactile, there’s something about it that makes people want to touch it.” Alex Gibbons On April 28th 2017 the first clay dabbins building to be constructed on the Solway … Continue reading
Posted in archaeology, architecture, conservation
Tagged clay dabbin, earth buildings, EBUKI, oxblood floor, volunteers
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Snippets 12: In praise of Bowness Moss
Bowness Moss or Common is one of the South Solway Mosses National Nature Reserves, NNR. The near-pristine centre of this raised mire is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, SSSI; it’s also a Special Area of Conservation, SAC. Acronyms are … Continue reading
Posted in conservation, peat, bogs and moors, Snippets, wetlands
Tagged imagine, peat
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Ask the fellows who cut the peats
“I just went and asked for a job – I fancied gaan cuttin’ peat. The foreman said, ‘I’ll take you up on the moss’ – and what a walk it was! A big wide open space, peat stacks everywhere. And … Continue reading
Posted in coastal heritage, conservation, industrial heritage, peat, bogs and moors, wetlands
Tagged climate change, peat, peat-cutting, Solway Wetlands
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From ‘killing field’ to wetland and woods: Watchtree Nature Reserve, Cumbria
From the hill at Watchtree Nature Reserve you can look across to the upper reaches of the Solway Firth, the Borders and, to the East, the Northern Fells. It’s early February and the snow-coated top of Skiddaw is glistening in … Continue reading
Posted in conservation, Foot-and-Mouth epidemic, wetlands
Tagged conservation, Great Orton airfield, Watchtree Nature Reserve
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Snippets 6: ” ‘Tis the voice of the lobster’ I heard him declare…”
Cumbria isn’t just about the National Park and Herdwick sheep, but even on the Solway coast, it sometimes helps to have ‘Lake District’ in your title. The Lake District Coast Aquarium at Maryport is a little gem of an aquarium … Continue reading
Posted in conservation, fishing, Snippets
Tagged aquarium, conservation, FLAG, lobster hatchery, lobsters, Maryport, NW IFCA
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Snippets 3: plastic rubbish and a bathyscope
My new piece of kit as a ‘low-tide guide’ (a delightful title conferred on me recently by BBC Radio4’s Open Country) is a bathyscope; with a bathyscope one can peer beneath the ruffled surface of pools and find out what’s … Continue reading
Posted in conservation, Snippets, tidelines
Tagged bathyscope, marine litter, plastic rubbish
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What’s an AONB?
“Most people don’t know what an AONB is – but it’s exactly what it says, it’s an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.” The important word is ‘beauty’, of the outstanding and natural type. Graeme Proud is the Ranger/Volunteer Co-ordinator for … Continue reading
Posted in conservation, tidelines
Tagged conservation, hot potatoes, litter-picking, rubbish, strandline, volunteers
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Solway Shore-walker 