South Walney

Cattle grazing the salt marsh

Over Jubilee Bridge onto Walney Island the pace of life slows and slows as a single-track road winds about the island. The morning skyscape has intricate patterns of cloud,  white on blue. A few flowers and a greyish blue haze infer it's the season of sea-lavender and sea-aster but the salt marsh is dimly lit, ethereal light in the sky above.  The scene has the tranquillity and timelessness of a Constable painting- through shingle to salt marsh grazed by cows and  calves with Piel Castle in the distance.  A rural idyll. Sensing an incoming tide,  the cattle head for the shore, wading through channels in the salt marsh, a cool immersion as the temperature rises on a heat-wave day that will peak at 28 degrees by the afternoon.

Ringed plover forage along the shoreline, some twenty or more, and amongst them a dunlin. The day is still, with breaking wavelets of the incoming tide. A single eider swims out in the channel,  dark in eclipse plumage.  
In the foreground, tiny ringed plover on the shoreline, then cattle grazing on islets in a network of channels through the salt marsh, Piel Channel and the distant castle.  Delicate patterns of white cloud are transient and by the time we reached Coastguard Cottages that glorious cloudscape is gone. 

 Viper's bugloss is in flower with the last  few yellow horned poppies but successive heat-waves have blasted the flora. (today at 28 degrees is the fifth heat-wave of the summer) I search and search for viola tricolor which has a long flowering period, and find none.  South Walney is the driest place in Cumbria, we are reminded by a volunteer on the island.
Sandwich tern are present and I'd hoped we might find them from Peggy Braithwaite hide. All along the far shore there are oystercatcher and a mix of gulls. A couple of seals swim off the point until a small boat appears and the birds take flight.
From the track, the maritime flora of the mud-flats looks insignificant and, on closer view, it seems heat-stressed too.  Sea-lavender, salicornia and sea purslane are here but they're stressed by successive  heat-waves and drought. 
Swallows swoop low as they feed over  pools approaching  Groyne Hide. But it's gone.  Only the concrete base and piles of timber neatly stacked. ​

Sunlight gleams off a calm sea as we head for Sea Hide.  There's one large Greater mullein and numerous thistles, all gone to seed.  Some ragwort flowers, but little else. Grass burnt to a crisp crunches under my feet. Marram grass in the sand dunes seems resilient.  It's after noon and hot with only an occasional hint of breeze, not the forecast 'light winds.'  Two men are settled to sea-watch and welcome us to join them in the hide.  They often come here birding and love South Walney, as we do.  With telescopes, they've picked up the Manx shearwater but they were far out and are gone.  I hear Sandwich tern and glimpse them flying to a backdrop of wind turbines (a forlorn hope on a still day). Once, the men found a Great Northern Diver.  In hearing of rarities we neglect what's before us until my friend points out waders scurrying along a shoreline of breaking wavelets.  
This latest version of Sea-hide is comfortable even in 28 degrees. The previous hide had to go, we all agree.  The design was poor. With no opening windows it was stifling. ' No seats, nowhere to put your coffee cup.' Birders settle into sea-watch, like these two men who have come directly from Coastguard Cottages to Sea-hide,  their destination  right here in this hide, for the day. They're  genial and helpful and, without telescopes, we could not identify those shoreline waders; turnstone, dunlin and sanderling.
My friend discovers what happened to Groyne Hide back at the information centre.  Coming to the end of its life it needed  to be replaced, she was told. We hope the new design will meet the needs of birders and those on seal-watch.
That evening Prime MInister Andy Burnham has summoned a meeting of COBRA to discuss the crisis of heat-waves, drought and wildfires.  He requests supermarkets not to sell disposable barbecues which are known to have caused numbers of wildfires.(camp fires, cigarettes and fireworks also the cause). The destruction of wildlife and their habitat and long-term damage to the environment is immeasurable. So is the impact on farmers, their livestock and their crops. The hazard to stressed and exhausted firefighters is unimaginable. 
On the morning of 15th the first thing we see on our phones is a government alert about the extreme risk of wildfires.  Do not light ANY fires, the Prime MInister exhorts the public.
Booths supermarket, Kendal,  has news-stands with headlines
Europe ablaze: The Guardian. Ban the barbies.  Prime Minister says don't light ANY fires: The Sun.
But the entrance to Booths is all about CHARCOAL, fuel for fires. Another display in the store. 
Sunday 16
Radio 4  Farming Today, Tinderbox Harvest
World this Weekend    focuses on the urgency of action, including the building of on-farm reservoirs. According to a Moray Poll 3/4 of the population want to see immediate action to address wildfires/ drought.  Booths need to wake up. 
Monday 17 PM Andy Burnham prioritizes the building of on-farm reservoirs.  And the removal of restrictive planning controls which prevent its happening.