The west coast of Wales has certainly taken a battering of late.Two days ago (1st Feb ) a Force 9 gale lashed the local coastline but today the wind had dropped to Force 5-6 . With the sun giving a rare appearance, I decided to venture down to the little seaside town of Criccieth to see how it had fared.
As expected the tide was very high, and huge waves were thumping against the seawall and esplanade,but no obvious damage was visible.However the cliffs on the west side of Criccieth had suffered severe erosion with large sections having collapsed into the sea.
Further along the coast where the land is lower the sea had surged over the top of the beach, scouring the land and dumping masses of sand, pebbles and sea borne plastic rubbish over a wide area.Most of the damage that I saw was actually caused by the severe storm on Boxing Day.
Although the weather so far this winter has been exceptionally wet and stormy, it has been mild and that has encouraged the spring flowers to start growing earlier. Our Snowdrops have been in flower since Jan 8th and the Daffodils are now 20 cm high.Bluebells have also made an appearance,their bright green shoots pushing up to 5 cm above ground as shown in the photo I took today (4th Feb )
There are also two other spring flowers in this photo; on the left with feathery leaves is Pignut and on the right,the heart shaped leaves of Lesser Celandine.
So the spring flowers are on the way but the Frog spawn is already here.............see below.
This small healthy clump I spotted today but I guess that it has been there for a couple of days..............so deposited probably at the beginning of Feb. Last year I noticed spawn in the same pond on 6th Feb.
It's lovely to hear the birds singing once again especially the Mistle Thrush calling from the tree tops.I even saw a pair of Robins mating which is very early indeed.There are plenty of ducks down on the marshes including Teal,Wigeon and Shovelers. Flocks of Canada Geese,Whooper and Mute Swans are busy grazing the farm fields.
On the 30th Jan I heard a Vixen barking at dusk from the woodland
near my house;checking my notebook I heard a vixen on the 20th January last year from exactly the same place.
If you are a regular follower of the Season Watch blog you will be aware that I record the occurrence of seasonal life cycle events of particular animals and plants as mentioned above.
Recording events like these and their relationship to seasonal climate and habitat influences is called Phenology and has proved useful in the study of Climate Change and Global Warming.
Using records compiled over many years has enabled scientists to monitor trends in animal and plant life cycles that can indicate changes in global temperatures.For example,the early growth of spring plants and arrival of migrating birds species indicate that Spring is beginning earlier as winters become milder.
