Saving England's most threatened species from extinction
Archive:
3rd December 2020
Down beneath your feet, often unnoticed are some of the rarest species in the country! Sea Bryum is one of them - a member of the bryophyte family; it enjoys the open sandy conditions of newly forming sand dunes. Unfortunately, the amount of this habitat is reducing; as a result of this numbers are...
Read more2nd October 2020
What’s been happening with Gems in the Dunes here on the Sefton coast? Project Manager, Fiona Sunners fills us in on what’s been happening with ARC's Gems in the Dunes project on the Sefton coast over the summer and what they've got planned for the winter season. Well it looks like the wildlife has been carrying on...
Read more1st May 2020
Last week during the wonderful sunny weather, I noticed hundreds of St Marks flies hanging round outside my window whilst working at home, so called because they emerge around St Marks day - 25th April. They reminded me of this time last year when I was out surveying in the sand dunes on the Sefton...
Read more10th February 2020
I saw my first sand lizard in the 1960s at Ainsdale, when I was aged about ten. The car would be parked on the beach, and we would climb over the frontal dunes to the dune slack area, looking for whatever creatures were in the water. That is where I saw my first newt and...
Read more24th September 2019
Outdoor Art in the Dunes Sarah Jane Richards on Painting in the Dunes........ It was a blustery windy day on Sunday as we met at the st Lukes Church. There was a good mixture of people, a few were regular visitors to the life boat road beach, living locally and walking it regularly, others came...
Read more31st July 2019
The Perfect Pond! What a difference a year makes – this time last year we were in the middle of a heatwave clocking temperatures close to 30, and now, well the forecast says it’s at least 16 degrees outside but the rain is definitely making it feel cooler. The rain isn’t all bad however, in...
Read more18th January 2019
When I tried to pick out one thing to focus on from my volunteering experiences with Gems in the Dunes over the last year, I found it was an impossible task! Looking back over all the talks, walks, training, habitat management and surveys I have been involved in, I decided to showcase my favourite Sefton...
Read more1st October 2018
“Have you lost something?” It's a question I hear surprisingly often in this job and it isn’t hard to see why. Imagine walking your dog through the sand dunes and you come across a group of people on their hands and knees with their faces close to the ground. It isn’t a group of people...
Read more24th June 2018
Tuesday 19th June saw a large party of us (volunteers) creating a new “dune scrape” in the dunes north of Ainsdale beach. A dune scrape is where a wet hollow is created in the dunes, with the intention of providing a habitat for species such as Natterjack Toads and Petalwort, amongst others. On the day...
Read more3rd January 2018
In our last two Willow Tit blogs, we introduced the project itself and then looked at why it’s been chosen for Back from the Brink. In this blog piece, we’re focussing on how you can spot a Willow Tit and what you can do when that happens.
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