Siberian and Northern Visitors

Whilst out and about on the Lizard this winter it is worth keeping an eye out for a lovely little visiting bird from Siberia – the beautiful Yellow Browed Warbler.

Yellow Browed Warbler

This tiny bird (about 10cm long and in the same family as the more common Chiffchaff) is a rare winter visitor – however this year they have turned up in relatively large numbers and are being reported from many sites on the Lizard. Daily sightings can be viewed at www.cbwps.org.uk. Although not technically on the Lizard a good site is around the sewage works at Penrose (Helston); there are also at least two frequenting the sewage works at Coverack. They can turn up anywhere but favour trees and scrub close to the coast and are often found mixing with flocks of tits, crests and chiffchaffs.

Another northern winter visitor is the Brambling – you will have a much better chance of seeing one of these on the Lizard as they frequent bird feeders. They also are often found in flocks of Chaffinch.

Male Brambling

Female Brambling

Published: Jan 2019
Author: Dougy Wright 

Time flies when you are having fun. Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust

2018 was a landmark year for Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust (CSGRT).
People: We now have three rangers: Amazement and Discovery Ranger (Marion Beaulieu), Seal Research Ranger (Katie Bellman) and Creativity and Activity Ranger (Emily Pollitt) thanks to our funders and incredible donations. We won two prestigious awards from ‘Cornwall Volunteers’ and a ‘Cornwall Sustainability Award’. Sue’s leadership was recognised in print by Bob Earll’s book ‘Marine Conservation: People, Ideas and Action’. In 2018, we delivered 50+ seal talks; 20+ training sessions and 29+ Seal Squad stalls engaging just under 7000 people.
Data, policy and planning: We recruited 14 seal Photo ID Hubs across the SW including one on the Roseland. Decentralisation helps our future sustainability and seal conservation at a local scale. In 2018 alone, CSGRT received 3481 seal records, processing an incredible 113,616 photos from 347 different volunteer recorders and 4 systematic PIP teams (7 LISPIP; in addition to 3 STAPIP, 4 CASPIP and 4 POLPIP boat surveys across a 115km stretch of cornwall’s north coast) covering 282 different locations across Cornwall, Devon and the Isles of Scilly. This included 66 surveys of the key Roseland sites by Rob Wells and Kath Wherry and almost daily surveys by Veronica Toft on the estuary side. CSGRT’s evidence base gave seals a voice in 12+ major consultations this year and our data went to the Global Ghost Gear Initiative; 5 Gyres’ Trawlshare (microplastics) and Pinniped Entanglement Group. Our combined photo ID team effort ‘Pinnipeds, people and photo ID’ has been accepted by the JMBA.
Seals: 2018 also saw the return of Septimus to CSGRT – a seal we knew in life and the third longest dead in Cornwall. Other celebrity seals included ‘Locket’ swam to St Ives Bay at 19 weeks old having been born on the Lizard. ‘Lucky Star’ was finally rescued on 01/10 by Sue and Dan Jarvis (BDMLR); ‘H chair’ swam from West Cornwall to Lundy; ‘Wings’ made it Cornwall 2: Wales 1 pup; ‘Windy Dog’ beachmastered having gone missing for four years whilst ‘Millie’ returned after an absence of nine years. In contrast eight seals from 2000 were re-identified in 2018.

Santa & the Seaways

The Festive Season is upon us & provides an excuse to peer into the quasi mythical origins of Father Christmas aka Santa Claus, based on the mostly real person of St Nicholas whose church yet exists at Myra on the southern coast of Anatolia. Safely accredited to him, long after his death, are stories of him lobbing bags of gold through the broken window of a pauper on 3 consecutive nights thus providing dowries for the marriage of his 3 daughters, disallowing the alternative of lives spent in prostitution & providing the sign of 3 golden balls advertising his patronage of pawnbrokers. Five centuries after his demise his fame was made known in western Europe in the C9th by the Balkan saint, Methodius who likely added miraculous events to St Nick's vita. Another half a millennium later the pawnbrokers' sign (5 of them) became the 15 Balls of the Cornish coat of arms¹.

But St Nicholas had others to care for, retrospectively awarded by the same Methodius: he assuaged famine by the process of stealing 100 hogsheads² of corn from every grain ship landing cargoes in Lycia (miraculously unnoticed by the soporific tally clerks) & by appearing to the mariners freighting his stolen bones to Italy he quietened their fears of foundering in a storm, assisting as he did so his own post-mortal abduction, thus becoming the patron saint of sailors.
This latter qualification might more suitably be awarded to later historical mortals:
shortly before the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the C7th AD, a cargo of Cornish tin arrived in Alexandria. Financed by the Patriarch of Alexandria, John the Almsgiver³, twenty thousand bushels of corn⁴ were received by famished Cornubians via a ship plying a route travelled through millennia of conflict, war, disputes, piracy, foul weather & worse: trade was carrying on with whatever whoever would exchange. Maritime trade routes, still flourishing after the withering of the Western Roman Empire, connected the eastern Mediterranean with the nether regions of Cornwall via the Sea of Marmara, the Mediterranean, the Pillars of Hercules, Vigo, Biscayne Bay & the Channel &, occasionally, other hints of what was carried emerge. Just along the coast from Myra at the western tip of Anatolia, factories of the Eastern Roman Empire produced Phocaean red slip ware in the days when Rome had lost its grip on Britain. A sherd, dated to the C5th or C6th AD, from this source, has recently been excavated at Boden by Meg, Secretary of MAG.

The Crawfish Comeback

Waters around the Lizard appear to be playing an important role in the recovery of an iconic crustacean from a population crash that threatened it with near-extinction in the 70’s and 80’s.

Crawfish under a rock crevice. Credit: Natural England

Crawfish are a warm water species that are at the northern limit of their distribution in British waters. Although they may appear to resemble the more familiar Lobster, in fact the two are not that closely related. Unlike lobster, crawfish are golden-orange in colour and are covered in spines. They lack the familiar large claws of the lobster, instead being equipped with spikey front legs and long antennae. These beautiful crustaceans were once far more common around our shores, having been brought almost to extinction in the UK due to extensive overfishing by potting, scuba diving and netting in the 1970’s and ‘80s. Crawfish are identified as in need of protection, and are a Species of Principal Importance under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006.
Crawfish are long-lived, mobile animals, that can grow up to 60cm in length and are known to migrate large distances over the seabed. They are typically found occupying rock ledges and crevices at depths beyond 15m. They regularly live to at least 15 years of age, and some individuals have been known to live much longer.

Crawfish: Dr. Keith Hiscock

Crawfish mate in the summer, and females carry the fertilised eggs externally for between 6-10 months. Females carrying eggs (known as ‘berried hens’) can be found in Cornish waters, but more commonly they will move to deeper waters offshore to overwinter while the embryos mature. Larvae are also carried into Cornish waters by warm ocean currents, so populations here may depend in part on the health of stocks in the Bay of Biscay and the coast of Spain.

Human & physical geography of Cornwall

This week I had the great pleasure of introducing new first year students from the University of Exeter's Centre for Geography, Environment and Society to the human and physical geography of Cornwall during a fieldtrip to West Penwith. We spent two days looking at the cultural, historical geography of that area, along with geomorphology, ecology, landuse and heritage. As I sat atop Carn Galver with them, bellowing into the wind, I pointed south east towards the Lizard to illustrate an important current concept for landscape managers: ecosystem services. I know the Lizard far better than West Penwith, so it was an obvious choice to help me describe what can sometimes be a difficult idea for students to get their heads around. The ecosystem services approach identifies four types of services provided by nature: provisioning services, supporting services, regulating services and cultural services. These cover everything from nutrient cycling, pollination and water purification to more esoteric services such as spiritual renewal and inspiration. On the Lizard, all these services are present simultaneously, and part of the challenge for landscape managers and others is to figure out how to identify them, measure them, and ultimately attribute a value to them. For example, the wonderful views provided by the coast path from Lizard to Kynance (one of my favourite walks) generates significant revenue from tourism and visitors. That is relatively easy to identify and measure. But what about the value of that wonderful fresh air, which is produced by a global atmospheric system? That is a service produced at a much larger scale, and is in some respects harder to measure and harder to value.

Relocating the coast path between Porthleven & Penrose

As a ranger for the National Trust with the privilege of looking after Penrose I always enjoy hearing the stories of how at one time you were able to drive from Porthleven, along the coast, dropping down across Loe Bar then up towards Chyvarloe. That must have been an amazing yet slightly scary drive in a Morris Marina. Ever since a section of that ByWay fell into the sea in the 70’s that route remained hugely popular for walkers, cyclists and horse riders for decades.
It was with much sadness that on a rainy January morning we heard the news that a large section had fallen away into the sea. The route which had served as a favoured walk for visitors and locals alike had finally become part of the ever changing coastline at Penrose. The challenge now was to take this problem and from it create a new opportunity.
There was a great response from the many thousands of people that once walked those cliffs with offers of help and support. It was clear that whatever work we did going forward we would need to make sure it catered for all those who enjoyed the stunning clifftop path, be it walkers, cyclists or horse riders. This was the start of many conversations and trips out to the coast with a range of groups and societies, we were lucky enough to get help and support from the British Horse Society, the South West Coast Path Association and some fantastic feedback from a public meeting in Porthleven town hall.
After absorbing all these great ideas and looking at the practicalities of building a brand new route through steep cliff fields, it was decided that we would not only create over half a kilometre of new surfaced footpath but also another brand new bridleway link again over half a kilometre in distance.
To make sure the work was done in a way that worked for the landscape of Penrose we undertook a series of surveys to make sure that we were taking into account the Archaeology, the ecology and the historical significance of that stretch of coastline. As part of this process all of this information was submitted to the local council for planning approval. We took this time to fundraise for the new route and had an amazing response to our online donation page, raising over a £1000 within 7 days.