Hawthorn Hive

The landslips on the beach at Hawthorn Hive on the Durham coast (above) have a fascinating limestone flora, where the shelter of the cliffs often coaxes plants into flower early.

Last weekend we found the first bloody crane'sbill flowers opening ...

 

... at the same time as the last of the dog violets were beginning to fade ....

..... while common milkwort was also just coming into bloom

 

... and glaucous sedge was also flowering. The upper flower spike on the sedge carries the stamens that have already shed their pollen, while the lower two flanking it are female, identifiable by the feathery white stigmas protruding from them. Sedges are easily identifiable by the triangular cross section of their stem - roll the stem between finger and thumb and you can feel that it's three-sided.

Meanwhile, twayblade orchid flower buds are still developing, and it will be a week or two yet before they open.

Life on the Edge

The Durham coast used to be famed for industrial dereliction and coal waste dumping, but thanks to a wonderfully successful clean-up campaign it's now a great place for coastal walking, where you can get eye-to-eye with a kestrel as it glides on the updraft from the beach.

The cliffs south of Seaham are becoming popular with birders  - it's a great place to watch the fulmars that nest on the cliffs as they glide by .... 

... and yesterday the scrub on the cliff top was alive with singing whitethroats

...

... along with this smartly turned-out cock chaffinch..

The calcareous grassland along the Durham Coastal path is now part of the Durham Heritage Coast and just now the cowslips are coming into full bloom ...

.... along with the early purple orchids - a narrow strip of floral diversity, perched on top of the crumbling cliff edge

Mollusc Hoodie

Most specimens of the large black slug Arion ater are jet black, but I found this handsome red form with grey tentacles crawling across a woodland path near Durham city today. The red form is much commoner in the south of England. In the image above you can see the large open breathing pore (pneumostome) that leads to the mantle cavity - a simple form of lung.

The whole slug was covered in a layer of grey mucus and ....

.... when fully extended was about 12 cm. long. This is our largest slug species.

Arion ater has very distinctive behaviour when you give it a prod. First it withdraws its tentacles under a hood and closes its pneumostome, then it gently rocks from side to side, as if in silent fury. This behaviour, combined with that distasteful mucus, probably deters a lot of predators.

After a while it will begin to extend an inquiring tentacle from under the hood, to see if the threat has gone and the coast is clear ...

.... and if it is it extends its tentacles, opens its pneumostome (to breathe a sigh of relief?) and glides away into the undergrowth.