The summer weeds are putting on their own Druridge Bay flower festival

High summer and the flowers are at a crescendo, teetering on being overblown or scorched. In particular some of the overlooked and common place plants of the waysides are stunning, if they can hold a small patch of their own in amongst the ripened wheat and barley around Cresswell and Ellington. Here is a carpet of may weed smeared through a seasonal flash where the water-logging keeps the crops at bay just by Ellington Caravan Park, doing their best to look like a psychedelic shirt. The scented mayweed with its large daisy-esque flowers has an underlay of pineapple mayweed whose pineapple drop sweetie smell is distinct on the warm summer breeze. The may weed’s froth is broken by occasional knotweeds and bistorts, zig-zag stems adding dots of pink flower heads to the mix. None are rare, some are even a pest but they are at home of the scarps of land that the plough has not tamed until the pre-harvest herbicide sprays end their defiance.

 

Where the subsidence ponds have dried away you can find a more straggling version of the may weed canopy. In the photo above the fragmented stands of mayweed (white flowers, feathery leaves) and bistorts (pale pink flowers, spear shaped leaves, often blotched darker in the centre) are laced with the grey stems of cud weed. Again the cud weed relishes these battered and baked gaps in amongst the crops. Well managed nature reserves do not seem to suit the cud weed or may weed. Instead they scratch out a barely noticed living amongst the arable crops. Many grow by gateways, along the tracks through the fields and by car parks so you are probably stepping on them when you visit the Bay. They will be destroyed by autumn, either the frost or plough, but back next year and in unpredictable mixes as different members of the cast hit the stage to show off, whilst others seem to rest on their laurels. This year’s star performer: the may weed. Catch their show before the combine harvester brings down the curtain

Druridge Bay's minibeasts put on a summer with a cast millions strong

High summer and the Bay’s smaller inhabitants are in their element. With avocet chicks and egrets to admire it is easy to overlook but stop in your tracks and get down to flower or mud level for a treat.  The ragwort flowers are currently home to swarms of shiny pollen beetles. You don’t have to go far from the Drift Cafe to find them in hordes, along with burnet moths resplendent in their black and red warning livery. The flower beetles are rotund and shiny, ready fliers that ping and lift off in the afternoon’s heat. Tempting to wonder how many there are, just for brief week. You could work this out by counting how many on a few ragwort heads, then how many ragwort flowers along a few paces of road, then how many paces long the coast. This would still be an underestimate but is a good way to tune into their world. Then go back to the Drift and have a cake to celebrate working in millions.

Next, the mud....

 

 

Down at mud level is exciting too. Here is a carpet of mud flies on one of the subsidence ponds at Blakemoor. Their world is a startling up-and-down, the mud pocked and teased into blancmangy mounds. These flies expertly trace a precise line, just above the water but not too far back where the mud begins to harden. Presumably the shifting goo is to their liking. They tip toe, almost imperceptibly, creeping across the ooze, occasionally taking to flight in slow drifts is your shadow unnerves them. They do not fly far, seemingly focused wholly on their beloved mud.

Further out on the water skate silvered long headed flies, more active, rather piractical, although the couple on the left of the photo below apparently creeping up on a flock of mud flies in this photo are looking for smaller prey where a film of water still overlies the mud.

 

 

They are skittish, alternating burst of speed skating with outraged hops and leaps if a pair approaches too close.

The heavy heat of July is their time and a beautiful invitation into lives we overlook, which is our loss

Banks Mining's Druridge Bay open cast plan begins to dig the political dirt

The Druridge Bay open cast plan has begun to mine a rich seam of politics. A bit like the coal the politics was always very near the surface and, judging by a report in the Chronicle, is now in plain view.

A few days before the July 5^th Council planning meeting the Labour shadow Energy Secretary, Brian Gardiner MP, called on the government to call in the proposal, i.e. effectively make it a decision for central Government. This generally means that a planning bid is either of strategic importance and/or something on which the government has a definite opinion, for or against, and does not want to leave to local councils. Given the sentiment prior to the meeting amongst many following the case that the proposal would be approved such a call suggests Brian Gardiner is against and he made clear the government should stop it progressing.

His stance seems to have angered local labour politicians, provoking council leader Grant Davey to hit back, clearly worried about labour’s chances in forthcoming elections.   The Chronicle’s report quotes a letter from Mr Davey to Labour central as saying:

“This blatant attack on our minority administration and the creation of a viewpoint that Labours National Energy Policy has been written by the Green Party, will do nothing to aid Labour’s recovery in Northumberland and as we have all out elections in May 2017 I do hope we have time to recover from the massive damage done to our reputation by this man.”

Which makes the link between the planning committees vote and the politics very exact, both the immediate part political concerns of the local Labour party but also a small subtle sense of schism between the Labour Party  seen as closely allied to the Greens versus the local party in Northumberland rooted in proud traditions of mining. Opposition to the mine is routinely portrayed as outsiders (the anti - signatories from as far afield as Madagascar and Bangladesh....). Now it looks like the fault lines are opening up between the metropolitan Corbynists and the local labour traditionalists

Check out the comments following the Chronicle piece and you’ll see how quickly the Druridge Bay open cast has got mired in the debate around Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/highthorn-mine-leader-accuses-jeremy-11578359.

 

Meantime the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management ran a pond morning gat the bay on Saturday with people coming up from as far as Teesside to admire the Bay’s fine wetlands. Here we are: I expect they are watching for me to fall in.

Storm Desmond resets the ecological stage at Hauxley six months on

Storm Desmond hit Hauxley Nature Reserve hard. The immediate problem in mid-December 2015 was the flowing across the main road in into the field with the little experimental ponds we dug out in 1994. The deluge cut off the reserve, right in the middle of the new build. The car park was just about accessible in a 4x4 though a hovercraft was probably the best bet. Here is a photo, from the Wildlife Trust,  looking back along the road with the flood waters spilling over into the field on the right,home to the little ponds.

At the time we thought the waters would recede. The field by the entrance has flooded before, even at unlikely times such as the early summer of 1997 when an intense rain storm hit just when the little experimental ponds would normally dry up. They didn’t dry for another two years and changed markedly. The plants and animals that like a bit of drying out were much scarcer and instead thick blankets of green algae took over. A couple of years later, once the ponds had dried out again in the summer of 1999o the algae disappeared. Animals and plants benefit from the disturbance caused by drying, creatures like pea shrimps (Ostracoda) or rarer algae such as the stoneworts (Chara) re-appeared, maybe from drought resistant eggs or, in the case of Stoneworts, oospores in the mud, activated by desiccation.

Storm Desmond seems to have changed the field. Six months on and it is still almost completely flooded over. Here are two views from the middle of the field back to the road, across the ponds. Firstly July 2012, a very wet year, but no total flooding. On the right, the same view July 2016.

The water is not falling which begs the question is it being topped up somehow? More pressing for the wildlife are the impacts. Gone is the lush, flower strewn high summer wet meadow. Instead spike rush (Eleocharis palustris) is one of the few obvious survivors and the reeds from the pond to the side of the field have pushed out two bridge heads, their advance guard visibly snaking out into the flood.

One extreme event has reset the ecology of the whole pond system.

The Druridge Open cast gets approval. No surprise, but just the beginning

Northumberland County Council have voted to approve the Druridge Bay open cast mine application, 13 to 0 in favour. The decision and size of the vote seemed to cause surprise but should not do. Every wise Councillor knows you do not take decisions at meetings. That is far too clumsy and risky. Instead they will have consulted widely beforehand and I expect every councillor who went into that meeting had a good idea how they and their colleagues were going to vote. A unanimous vote is also important to avoid creating more friction and misunderstandings. Ultimately the council went for the jobs argument which, given the deprivation in much of south east Northumberland is understandable, at least for the mine jobs which could be counted in advance. Hard to measure any losses that the mine might cause if other businesses suffer. Councillors were also at pains to raise diverse points to show their awareness of the complex issues although the criticism of the overwhelming numbers of objectors as coming from as far away as Madagascar and Banglasdesh sounded like nervous over reaction.

Banks and the Council will be waiting to see if the government calls in the application, although whether there will be a functioning government may be a more pressing problem.

The outcome might seem like a straight forward win for Banks and the application. However the sheer numbers of objections from very local people still leaves a very divided community. A classic conservation problem. The avocets and egrets, harriers and pink foot are very good at looking after themselves given the chance. Conservation is more about people who want to earn a living, go for a walk, support a family, bird watch, revel in the peace and quiet, fear disturbance, worry for house prices. Banks will also have a lot to live up to and, without owning the land, are taking a risk themselves. What if the land owner does not want the mitigation plans proposed for seven years time? After all times change and the farming economy is likely to have changed markedly post Brexit. What if Banks want to extend the mine area along the lines of the earliest plans? The mine if only due to last seven years. What will happen to those 50+ jobs in seven years, are they a trump card that be played over and over again. The Council have taken a risk too. They will want the proposal to work well.  The Druridge open cast saga is far from over.

Banks Mining open cast planning application, Druridge Bay and a first half score draw

Banks Mining’s open cast planning application has reached its first deadline, for neighbours comments, although “neighbours” is a wide definition judging by the geographical spread of objectors and supporters.  As of the 8^th December the comments registered came to a perfect tie 508 objections versus 508 in support, as Northumberland County Council’s page shows. The Northumberland Wildlife Trust and RSPB have objected and so have I, all of us unnerved by the problem at the heart of Bank’s plans for the site; they do not own the land and every good intention is a hostage to fortune. What if several years down the line we are suddenly confronted with the familiar excuses that circumstances have changed, priorities are different, economic pressures dictate... ? Maybe none of this Banks’ fault given that they have no ultimate control over the site. I suspect that if they did control the land and were able to offer a new Hauxley, East Chevington or Druridge Pools then conservationists would have a different view. Sadly they cannot. Instead, according to the plan,  the site will be restored to more intensive agricultural use than currently and any wildlife gains depend wholly on the land owner not changing his mind.

The objections and support have been a fascinating mix. Step back for a minute and read the comments on either side.  The parry and thrust or argument features all the classic arguments around the environment; space for nature, jobs for people, energy supply, climate  change, tourism, coastal erosion, threats to health, transport. Also all the more emotive threads that weave, often acrimoniously, through such arguments; who should have a say, whose views count, locals and who counts as local, greed versus tree huggers.  With over 1000 comments a detailed geographical study would be interesting. There are both objectors and supporters from very near and much further away. The Council is thinking about a public meeting but seems wary knowing that these events can rapidly collapse into a shouting match between increasingly hostile sides each seeing the other as heartless and selfish.  Good to see the bay attracting so much interest either way

When is pond not a pond? An existential crisis and the probolem of choosing the best

Here is an example of how the Druridge Bay field ponds fluctuate in area depending on the rainfall. This might be an even more existential questions: can you have a pond that has no water in it, is it still a pond? Yes it is, although I am not sure how long you can go before saying it is no longer a pond. My personal preference would be years. I am sure there will be ponds in some desert habitat that only fill very rarely with long hard dry years in between. The pond in the photos above is just in the field to the right hand side of the entrance to Ellington Caravan Park. It is wet most years and well established. On the left is the pond in mid July 2012. Yes, those are rain drops smudging the lens. Still, it is not lashing rain so this must have been a particularly dry day given the deluge of 2012. On the left July 2014. No water an there had not been for a while, instead carpet of weeds that weave a distinct carpet over the exposed earth. Mayweeds and annual meadow grass, bistorts and cudweed. In 2012 the plant life was dominated by other species growing luxuriantly in the damp summer, although the overall tick list was much the same.

Which is the better pond? That could be a classic question asked of conservationists. Is it the overflowing quagmire of 2012 with thick tufts of toad rush and even underwater starworts? Or maybe the dried out mayweed and cudweed carpet of 2014. Both are good, both are typical of the Druridge fields. The differences between years do not matter, they are part of the natural disturbance and change. The real challenge will be if the local wildlife is exposed to weather conditions so different to anything they are used to that they cannot cope. The plants seemed to cope with 2012 but I do not know about the invertebrates because I was not monitoring them Butterflies took a massive hit, but butterflies like it sunny and dry. I am worried that the invertebrates may have been hit harder than we know, especially those with flying adult stages to their life history

Extreme weather and a not at all extreme graph: how rainfall influences the extent of the Bay's ponds

The first blog graph. I like a good graph, although these days it is very easy to create endless variety of rubbish graphs in colour and 3D.

This one shows how the areas of ponds varies between years and seasons at a site on the Bay, in particular the effects of extreme weather

Our autumn has been peculiarly warm, disconcertingly so. The fog is clammy rather than cold and there have been very few days when any wind strong enough to have shaken the leaves down. Instead I have stood in Newcastle and listened to the crisp patter of aspen leaves falling so neatly and gently you’d think it was a cheesy CGI effect. Unusual weather seems to be the norm. 

The example in the graph is from up on Druridge Bay at Blakemoor Farm. Every November and May between 2010 and 2013 I walked a zig zag route across the Blakemoor fields, a nine mile trek to find every pond and wetland down to the smallest pools of around 1m². Their areas were measured and in the graph you can see the total area for ponds in four types of fields The black area is the ponds in amongst the dune grassland, the dark grey from the arable fields or cereal and oil seed rape, the pale grey from permanent pasture and the white the area of ponds in amongst natural wetland. In all four cases the areas change markedly with the local rainfall. Over the three years of walking back and forth the Bay was hit by a distinct sequence of extreme weather; unusual drought from 2009 to March of 2012, then sudden and sustained rainfall resulting in a record breaking wet year and finally a 2013 heat-wave.

Much of the contemporary work on pond has been spurred by concerns at the loss of ponds from the British landscape over the last 100 years. The seasonal change at Blakemoor show a more complicated story, even the suggestion that extreme wet year can be good for the pondscape. However the damp and cold probably did more harm throughout the summer than any benefit provide by more and larger ponds.

Druridge Bay continues to reveal surprises and challenges about even such familiar habitats as the farm pond

 

Great Expectations, Banks Mining open cast and "all the infections that the sun sucks up"

When the escaped convict Magwitch ambushes the boy Pip at the start of Dicken’s Great Expectations he does not just appear on some anonymous street corner or leap out from behind a tree. Instead he looms out of the miasma fog of a Thames estuary salt marsh, more resembling an ancient bog creature than a man, coated in mud, dripping slime to menace the boy who would become his great friend (that's them from David Leary's superb 1946 film). Dicken’s choice of a marsh is no co-incidence. Certain habitats have always had particular associations. Think of a hay meadow for the joys of early summer (Cider with Rosie) or a windswept moor for doomed, gothic romance (Wuthering Heights). Wetlands ooze a particular menace; unruly, unkempt, their inner workings barely visible. They can swallow up a man or women and leave not a trace. Dancing lights lure the unwary to their doom. Diseases rise from their foetid waters. In the Tempest Shakespeare has Caliban curse his vanquisher, Prospero,

“All the infections that the sun sucks up
From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him
By inch-meal a disease.”

Then again Shakespeare would know all about the foul airs of bogs and fens since his famous globe theatre was then in unlovely Southwark, a mixture of very dodgy taverns, stinking fish ponds and even stinkier clientele.

One problem with wetlands is that they can be a hard sell, not just existing wetlands but also the possibility of creating new ones, for example managed retreat of the coastline or inland sites designed to hold flood waters. Wetlands provide a wealth of benefits: flood control, food, building materials, mopping up pollution, wildlife and recreation but these may not be obvious, except to specialist visitors such as bird watchers or flood control engineers.  New sites might even risk creating worries by visibly flooding.

The Banks Mining Open Caste proposal includes a wealth of environmental data and an emphasis on restoration, much of it focused on wetlands. Not a hint of Magwitch.

Low Newton and the new and old first years

Two days of autumn murk, the rain barely able to decide if it should be fog or cloud. Then two days of brilliant low sun, searing across the landscape, picking out every curve and trench, hollow and bump. Three weeks into their new course and we took the Environmental Science first years for a walk over the southern Cheviot foothills, then, the next day, along the coast to Low Newton. The sea was perfect pale blue with huge rafts of gulls, made white specks by the sun, bobbing off shore. This little dune slack pool is tucked behind the high dunes at Low Newton, a deep, warm hollow protected by the steep dune seaward and a cosy mess of wet woodland north and south. Red Admirals showed off with glide fly-bys around us

The pond was dug out some fifteen years ago by the National Trust who own the site. They could have dug out the whole area of the slack but, instead, put in six separate pools of varying sizes. Each one is now rather different. Clusters of smaller pools usually have more species of plants and animals than one large pond because each pool goes its own way. The pools at Low Newton are now chocked with bur reed and bulrush, over a vivid carpet of moss. Ideal pools to bury carbon, the moss layer keeping the sediment wet and anoxic even if the site dries out.

Post grad Scott came along on the walk, outlining his work to the students. That's Scott on the left. Two days of hard working, (and one night in Wooler of hard pool and pints), and they were still keen to note down the first hand account of research, a revealing mix of physical struggle in the mud and delicate geochemistry in the lab. Six years ago Scott himself was stood there, a first year himself.  An inspiration to our newer recruits. They probably learnt more in 10 minutes talking with Scott then in a two hour lecture. The one thing they can all do, whatever their future holds, is dig a pond.

Pretending it is summer with Druridge Bay's late butterflies

Autumn is not my favourite time of year. Where some people see a mellow, fruitful, contemplative landscape I just see it getting darker in the morning. Ruthless midwinter is just fine, the completed dark a stage set for lights and sparkle, but autumn is just grey and damp.

September however has been dramatically warm and sunny, the low rays casting each day into a silver and gold wonder. This speckled wood butterfly for instance, still out in good numbers and fresh specimens too, newly hatched and perky, flying up in battling pairs. Before 2008 speckled wood were a remarkable novelty in the north east but are now well established along the coast. They are one of the most reliable sights throughout the summer and multiple broods keep hatching so long as the warmth lasts. It is the expansion of butterfly and dragonfly ranges north into Northumberland that has me convinced that the climate is warming. These are sun loving species, not especially fussy about habitat: it is not some change to the landscape that had lured them from the warmer south Speckled wood, for example, are perfectly at home in gardens and parks. Along the Bay they do well at sites such as Hauxley with a mix of dappled hedge shade and open grass. Their caterpillars feed on common grasses, whilst the adults hold territories along the edges of paths and rises. This one is using the sun fuzzed seed pods of a willowherb as a launch pad to see off rivals

I do my best not to take them for granted. In 2008 I was startled to find on in Newcastle. In 2010 I broke my mobile phone, sitting on it in my haste to photograph one at Hauxley. Now speckled woods are a familiar, everyday companion. On the other hand I’ve not seen a wall brown for a couple of years and these more orangey cousins of the speckled wood look to be in trouble.

The butterflies briefly help pretend it is still June and July but the evening chill is creeping up on them. I know that the Bay is often at its best for bird watchers in Autumn but the colour is leaching away and the last flowers look scraggy and folorn.

The Druridge Bay open cast proposal and exactly who owns the elephants

In the United Kingdom we are fond of elephants. They are the staple stars of natural history TV, their close knit family lives, endearing babies and charming eye lashes creating a ready empathy as we watch their triumphs and challenges. Their struggles in the face of drought and lions, or, worse, our industrial poaching for ivory only endear them further. Elephants seem to have a sense of their own mortality and existence, which are very rare properties in the animal world. It comes as a surprise to many people in the UK that elephant big game hunting is nonetheless legal in much of southern Africa, and that some conservationists positively support this sport. The logic is grimly simple. If hunters pay a lot of money to shoot an elephant and then a substantial chunk of that cash goes to the local people on whose land the pachyderm was shot then the local people will put up with living next to these large, fast, greedy, clever leviathans. We are fond of elephants in the UK.... but we don’t have them in our back yard.

The problem is with approach to conservation is exactly whose land an elephant is on (or, technically, was) when it was shot. Trophy hunts linked to conservation have often run into problems once people realise the potential pay out. The idea works best where it is wholly clear whose land it is and who counts as local. Which is also part of the dramatic tension at Druridge Bay as Banks are about to submit their planning application. Who is a supporter and who against, and how local do you have to be to count?

Or, as Ronald and Douglas Smith put it when describing objectors to the mine proposal in an interview for Look North:

 

“It’s the people as moved up from Newcastle”,

“Haven’t got a clue what they’re on about”

These are good points, familiar to many a conservation debate. Town vs countryside, locals vs outsiders, bunny huggers vs despoilers of the countryside.

The Smith brothers’ opinions matter a great deal. South east Northumberland is an area rather cut off and left behind by economic powerhouses further south. Jobs are needed, there is a proud mining heritage, the economy needs a boost. So will the objectors be immediately check mated? No. The trouble with the outsiders/local argument is it all depends where you draw those lines. Which is exactly where the problems start with who owns a valuable elephant.

Funny how the challenges of wildlife in Drurdige Bay or southern Africa can be so similar.

Druridge Bay, Banks Mining and the open cast die is cast

Druridge Bay is about to become an amphitheatre for a classic battle of ideas and ideologies that that fought over a countryside for hundreds of years. The battle will not in some exquisite Coliseum but down and dirty in an open cast mine, more the scenery for 1970s Dr Who than Gladiator. Banks Mining are about to lodge their planning application for a new open cast between Cresswell and Druridge villages. Look North did a fine job of tracing out the battle lines: jobs, tourism, landscape, wildlife, energy, community, money. Their storyline captured the contested views of what might or might not happen very neatly, a microcosm of environmental debates from around the world.  There were firmly held views, with anti-mine protestors dismissed as know-nothing outsiders whilst equally local opponents of the mine worried that alternative businesses would be snuffed out.

For conservationists the open cast proposal represents a complex and unnerving dilemma. The best wildlife sites along the Bay are restored open cast mines, from Hauxley at the north through East Chevington and Druridge Pools. The potential of a new site, restored as a fine reserve once mined out is obvious. On the other hand that might not be the outcome. Hauxley, East Chevington and Druridge Pools were all handed over to the care of the Northumberland Wildlife Trust or National Trust. Trouble is that Banks do not own the proposed new site and cannot offer this prospect as a definite prize to aim for  beyond the short term horizon of mining. I suspect conservationists will be caught in the cross fire, at least in the short term. Fail to oppose the mine and we will be challenged by protestors who can draw on the deep roots of anti-nuclear power and sand extraction campaigns on the Bay. Fail to support the mine and we will be portrayed as anti-jobs, lacking the vision to see the future benefits.

I suspect this very blog will haver between these two poles, not least because of both the brilliant potential for a new wildlife site but the deadly uncertainty that it can be delivered.

Meantime the light has changed to autumns spun gold, warm in the day but the edge of cold in the air giving the lie to pretending it is still summer.

The whole wheat diet is not doing these ponds any good

Here is one of the Ellington Farm arable field subsidence ponds in September 2013 (left) and this July (right). In 2013 the wide, shallow pool had stayed wet most of the summer, the open water ideal for gulls, and waders to loaf about leaving the water’s edge with a scum line of preened feathers and down.  It was ploughed through in the autumn but then left unplanted and soon reverted to its less domesticated state. In 2015 the pond was waterlogged over winter but only as a small central pool and the winter wheat has been drilled, germinated and is fast approaching harvesting. I doubt that any teal or avocets hung around this year. Since 2010 we’ve kept track of when these ponds dry and fill, and their changing areas. The arable field ponds are particularly sensitive to the rainfall of the preceding month, the ponds in amongst wetland mosaics and dune slacks less so, perhaps buffered by a more waterlogged surround. 

If the pond stays like this the whole lot can be ploughed and planted this autumn, which may be enough to knock it out of the wider pond-scape and banish the wildlife that likes these disturbed, open flashes. The wall of wheat looks likely to advance, unless the weather turns fearsomely wet.

Drought and the plough: the subsidence ponds' tough summer

July has been an unlovely mix of cloudy, clammy days. Nonetheless we have had little sustained rain and the effects are obvious as the Bay’s smaller wetlands dry out.  Not a problem in itself, especially with the mosaic of pond types scattered across the landscape.  Perhaps a greater threat is the interplay between the weather and other forces, in particular land management. For example this subsidence pond at the south of the Bay at Ellington Farm. These fields are dotted with seasonal ponds, shallow bowls that fill every year, roundels in winter then choked with the ephemeral mayweeds and oraches of disturbed ground in summer. You can see the white splodges of scentless mayweed in bloom. This pond has been the summer hangout of avocets and gulls in recent summers but not this year. The dry weather has allowed the wheat to grow thick and strong a long way into what is normally the pond’s core. It is now a small remnant, forlorn in amongst the crop. The dry ground also means that tractors can plough through, rather than round.

It could be worse, for example this pond.

 

It’s not there. You can make out the faint curve where it has been but this summer a solid mass of wheat.  There are none of the characteristic plants in amongst the phalanx of stalks, only a huddle of pineapple mayweed along the distant hedge line edge.

Pond and their wildlife can cope with drying out, so long as there are refuges to retreat to then re-advance from. However the dry weather has tilted the balance in favour of the intensive cropping.  The land use looks to be the greater threat to the pondscape’s survival rather than the dry summer itself.  It is a classic threat, a double whammy of drying out and land use intensification. Wildlife can ride out the occasional mishap. But multiple stresses take a toll.  The subsidence ponds are having a tough year.

 

The drought canyons of Cresswell

 

The summer drying has come to Druridge Bay. In recent years I have done a regular walk every two to three months around the ponds at Blakemoor Farm. Many are temporary, whether in the dunes, grassy pasture or in amongst the arable crops. Most of them dry out in most summers, but not all. This summer though the drying out has claimed some new ponds.

 

The one in the photo is tucked away out of sight in pasture along the dune road and has never dried out since I started the walks in 2010. A spring seems out on the western slope and maybe this has kept it topped up whilst those around recede and dry. This summer though the whole pond has dried away, leaving a crazy-paving styled substrate of cracked mud. The cracks are six or more inches deep, zig-zagging between columns of concreted mud on which tiny plants perch, small tufts of pineapple mayweed or cudweed.  Down in the dark, cooler chasms the mud is not wholly dry, but these rifts create a oddly out of scale world. Individual columns of dried mud can be lifted out and replaced in a 3D jigsaw. This pond has always teemed with tiny invertebrates such as ostracods and chironomid midge larvae, a refuge in previous dry summers. The gloppy mud stayed largely free of aquatic plants, the water from the spring suspiciously high in conductivity, a hint of mine water perhaps from the abandoned seams of Ellington Colliery below. Why it should dry so completely this year I do not know but it is sad to see, a dry pond seldom worries me; temporary ponds benefit from a dry phase, however this seems strange. The gulls and teal of summer that once loafed around its rim, dawdling through July and August are gone and the field does not seem quite right.



Northumberland's shores and the geranium sea

Druridge Bay is decked out in its high summer finery. The dunes in particular are an intense barrage of colour: the yellows of ragwort, bird’s foot trefoil and ladies' bedstraw in amongst a pink-purple haze of bloody cranesbill. The cranesbill is so abundant that it is easy to take for granted, covering very dune face and hollow, even scuffed tufts hanging over dune paths. Try strolling out from Druridge Country park onto the dune-scape just beyond and the landward side of the tall dunes is a vivid sward of pink. They are wild geraniums, Geranium sanguinium. The odd sounding common name is not a botanist’s irate curse but a reference to their seed ponds that resemble miniature beaks of herons and storks and which become increasingly blood red in hue as summer advances, as if dipped in gore. You can make out a few of the pods, pointing skyward but still largely green in the photo above. So abundant is the bloody cranesbill along the Northumberland coast that it would make a good icon of our summer coast. From Berwick upon Tweed down to Tynemouth this geranium is widespread. Elsewhere around the shores of the UK it is scarce. I don’t know why this should be. It seems a tough and successful plant, surviving our north sea ravaged winters and summer sea fret. Right now just take time to gaze out over the pink haze to the blue north sea, ideally with a colourful cobble bobbing in picturesque cliché just off shore. The North Sea sounds too cold a name for July. Even if only for a month the dunes bright hues make these northern shores a geranium sea.

 

The southern hawker dragonflies and the hailstones

Southern Hawker dragonflies, Aeschna cyanea, have been emerging for the last week. I’ve only found a few of the old cast skins, called exuviae, so far, spooky and forlorn still clinging to sedge and reed stems as if they may be reanimated and crawl back into their ponds, but I’d not spotted any adults. Until today. Our region was hit by ferocious thunder storms last night, with hail stones the size of musket balls ricocheting around our back yard. This morning two newly hatched hawkers, maybe a bit subdued by the ominous weather and still not fully coloured up, were clinging to the cover of iris and reed stems at a nearby pond.  They will soon acquire the vivid bright green or pale blue bands that make them a very colourful insect.  As they whizz past I’ve heard startled passers by mistake them for very large wasps. The two conspicuous patches on the top of the thorax are particularly useful for identification. Once hatched and coloured up they will be away, often hawking along paths and woodland edges and taking their time before heading back to the wetlands of their birth. If you can get over the panic of “a very large wasp” take your time with them; the southern hawker is well known for its habit of inspecting you with as much interest as you might take in it. They will repeatedly fly up to you, check you out and seem as intrigued by your presence as you might be by their beauty. “Southern” is a bit of a misnomer. They are now quite at home this far north as this map from the nbn gateway shows : the yellow squares are 10x10 km grids from which the species has been recorded source, https://data.nbn.org.uk/Taxa/NBNSYS0000005626)

A blue tailed damselfly wash and brush up

Blue tailed damselflies (Ischnura elegans) have joined in the summer fun. It may be my imagination but they seem the shyest of the local damselflies, diminutive compared to their cousins.  Common red damselflies have an assertive flight, positively bossy in manner . They are on the wing early too and have been quartering their wetland homes for a few weeks now. Azure damselflies are also purposeful, zippy, an effect accentuated by the vivid almost all over blue of the males. The blue tails though tend to be more wary, fluttering into cover if you approach too boldly. The males are a slate grey with the blue spot at the end of their abdomen sometimes seeming to be in flying solo if the rest of the damselfly is obscured amongst the sedges and herbs. The females are even less conspicuous, although if you can sneak up close you’ll often find one flushed with a lilac thorax (the middle part of the body, bearing the wings and legs) or pale chestnut. This little male is giving himself a wipe behind his eyes before setting off on patrol, stretching his left foreleg over his head to wipe any specks from his bulbous eyes.  His blue tail spot is not fully coloured yet, but will become more intense with time. Watch out for blue specks floating through the plants around wetlands; each speck is likely to be a male blue tail, even if the rest of him is hard to see.

Sun, sex and suspicious parents: damselflies get the same hassle

 

Summer’s damselfies are lifting off in glittering droves. The azure damselflies (Coenagrion puella) have coloured up and the air can seem full of bright blue cocktail sticks deftly exploring the grass and rush swards, or perched up sunning themselves. Times are good in the heat. The males particularly are fidgety, landing for a few seconds then flitting up to argue. They seem unable to leave each other alone. Females tend to be cannier keeping out the way, only venturing out into public when ready to mate and provoking a rash of males to chase after them. These two are mating, the male the bluer one, the female a delicate green, hiding away  a bit in the reeds because other males will attempt to barge in, crash landing to knock them apart. Females will mate with several males. This makes life fraught for all concerned. Males endlessly pester. If a male mates with one female then unwisely abandons her another male can come in, mate and physically remove the first males sperm (I am sure you can find out how but be careful what you web search for). As a result it is much more usual for pairs to stay together for a while, the males going in for what is called mate guarding. The female uncurls from this mating wheel whilst the male maintains his hold around the back of her head with special claspers. They can fly off in this tandem, surprisingly fast. The male keeps a firm hold when they land, his legs folded, sticking up over the females head like an ornate hat whilst the female dips her abdomen into the water to lay her eggs. They still get hassled by single males, but at least they don’t have their parents turning up, unlike in the TV series