Category Archives: saltmarshes

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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‘Saltmarsh writing workshop’ – some words and images

Posted on September 18, 2022 by solwayshorewalker

The RSPB’s Campfield Reserve near Bowness on the Upper Solway is a perfect place for a writing workshop, especially if you want to ‘experience’, think about, and write about saltmarshes; they form a land- and sea-scape that most people probably … Continue reading →

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The charisma of Corophium, the mudshrimp

Posted on July 18, 2022 by solwayshorewalker

Snowdrifts! Small semicircles and rippling lines of white on the grass of the saltmarsh: the cast exoskeletons of thousands of mudshrimps. My friend and former colleague Professor Geoff Moore (himself an expert on amphipod crustaceans including Corophium) once told me … Continue reading →

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The fog and the froth

Posted on September 21, 2021 by solwayshorewalker

Diffuse, pale light glimmers and shifts with the fog above Skinburness saltmarsh. Two crows call harshly and fly swiftly towards a broad-winged shape, a buzzard, who slants his wings and flaps away, fading and disappearing into the whiteness. Along the … 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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SACs, SPAs, SSSIs on the Solway Firth: Learning to love the acronyms

Posted on June 10, 2020 by solwayshorewalker

“Think of [the list] as not so much an inventory as a catalogue leading to compelling and interacting stories.” [1] Conservation designations: their borders aren’t marked by posts or buoys, but they are marked by lines on maps, and by … Continue reading →

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Tracking Triops, the elusive Tadpole Shrimp

Posted on October 1, 2018 by solwayshorewalker

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 →

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The Solway saltmarshes

Posted on August 29, 2017 by solwayshorewalker

At first light on a Sunday morning in late September, Norman Holton sat on the edge of Campfield Marsh near Bowness on the Solway. On the Scottish side the starlings were, as usual, gathering in great wheeling clouds, and as … Continue reading →

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