Natterjack toad, Epidalea calamita Field Trip to Sandscale Haws, National Trust Reserve on the Duddon estuary. Within sight of Barrow in Furness is the lovely Sandscale Haws reserve. A few families were scattered across Duddon Sands, with a backdrop of the fells. A lovely spot for a day on the beach. We had the dunes to ourselves and what diversity for a naturalist group!
Reserve Manager Neil Forbes showed us species only local knowledge could have discovered and set all in the context of habitat management of a dynamic dune system.
A natterjack toad made its way over bubbling green pondweed. Neil went along the shore and returned with a tiny toad with distinctive yellow stripe along its back. In the dune slacks, there were fat wriggling natterjack tadpoles. I’d love to hear this rare and raucous toad in the mating season.
Neil Forbes and Sandscale Haws would feature on "Countryfile" on 9 September 2012, in a feature on the Furness Pensinsula.
There were cinnabar caterpillars on ragwort, munching away and absorbing toxins, stripping the plant and keeping it in check. No sign of the cinnabar moth. But six-spot burnet moths clustered thick on flowers of ragwort, great willow herb, thistle and thyme. On creeping willow there were discarded cocoons from which the moth had emerged. Neil knew there was yellow bird’s nest hidden deep in creeping willow and my friend Linda Wood found it.
A natterjack toad made its way over bubbling green pondweed. Neil went along the shore and returned with a tiny toad with distinctive yellow stripe along its back. In the dune slacks, there were fat wriggling natterjack tadpoles. I’d love to hear this rare and raucous toad in the mating season.
Neil Forbes and Sandscale Haws would feature on "Countryfile" on 9 September 2012, in a feature on the Furness Pensinsula.
There were cinnabar caterpillars on ragwort, munching away and absorbing toxins, stripping the plant and keeping it in check. No sign of the cinnabar moth. But six-spot burnet moths clustered thick on flowers of ragwort, great willow herb, thistle and thyme. On creeping willow there were discarded cocoons from which the moth had emerged. Neil knew there was yellow bird’s nest hidden deep in creeping willow and my friend Linda Wood found it.
 Yellow Bird's Nest, Monotropa hypopitys |  Ragwort with caterpillar of Cinnabar moth, Tyria jacobea |
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