Aware that I wasn't alone, I looked up to see a fox only yards away watching me inquisitively but with caution. It had found a sunny spot in a sea buckthorn clearing and was indulging in a spot of sunbathing. It was quite happy to watch me and didn't seem to see me as a threat until I moved slightly to try and get a better view when it retreated into the undergrowth and continued to study me from the security of the thorns. It was an absolute joy to experience this close encounter.
I had decided to have a walk through the dunes at Cleethorpes to check out the orchids and to do a butterfly and bird count. I had been full of doom and gloom when I was last here earlier in the year when the scene was one of devastation. Scrub clearance, as part of Lincolnshire's Dynamic Dunscape Project, had been undertaken leaving the area not looking its best. However my despondency had been totally misplaced as the dunes were looking stunning and the orchids perhpaps better than ever. There are two main types of orchid here: common spotted and southern marsh and also their hybrids. As if the identification of some of our orchids was not difficult enough, some species have a habit of cross-pollinating with each other to produce hybrids. These hybrids are often fertile and can continue to cross not only with each other, but also back cross with either of the parents. The result is a 'hybrid swarm', where a population at a single site can show more or less a full spectrum of intermediates from one original parent to the other. Marsh and spotted orchids seem most prone to this behaviour and their hybrids are usually a tall and stately plant with a large number of flowers in the spike. This happens here in Cleethorpes Dunes but also at Saltfleetby/Theddlethorpe NNR. A challenge to identify they may be, but in Cleethorpes Dunes they make a tremendous display.
As well as my encounter with the fox and the enjoyment of the orchids I found 25 bird species and 8 butterfly species so, an excellent afternoon.
To view large, Please click on an image
No comments:
Post a Comment