Nothing sums up early Autumn to me, more than a day at Dungeness. The great flat shingle promontory is speckled with late summer flowers and dense thickets hide resting passerines on migration, and the brambles are growing heavy with blackberries.
We’ve spent many a day down here at this time of year, back when we were – dare I say it – twitchers. And I use that term lightly in our case since we only ever went after certain favourite birds we really wanted to see, rather than tick off a list. Melodious warblers, Pallas’s warblers, Red necked phalaropes, white winged black terns, are among the avian treats we’ve enjoyed over the years. And of course there are the wrynecks. We still look for the wrynecks, and we still scan the numerous bushes for passing ring ouzels and maybe the odd whinchat.
If you’ve not yet visited the great shingle desert that is Dungeness – either as a naturalist like myself, or just as a sight-seer – make it a priority. When people arrive at this bizarre, flat, arid landscape for the first time, some fall in love with it’s quirkiness and weird beauty and some find it too stark and eerie. In my case, it was the former. I tend to be left cold by ‘flat’ places, but this little far corner of Kent is an exception. When I first came here I was charmed by the unique dry vistas dotted with strange dwellings with ramshackle rockery gardens, the lighthouse, the random often unidentifiable relics lying about the place. It sort of reminded me of a place you might see in an old American film, set in deepest rural Idaho or some such.
Furthermore, I was intrigued by the place’s unique natural history. Vegetated shingle is a rare and fragile habitat, with a great deal of specialist wildlife that relies upon it. I’ve barely even scratched the surface here so far, since I’ve not really even got started on the rare invertebrates that make Dungeness home. I had my mind on plants again today though. Since I decided I needed to improve my handle on botany for my own career development, I’ve sort of homed in on all things green. I was wondering what weird plants might be found here, as I had been reading up a little on the botanical value of vegetated shingle habitats.
Summer is on the wane but I knew there would still be things of interest in flower – enough to keep me amused while Paul foraged the bramble bushes for blackberries… and skulking birds. I’d done a scant bit of research on the botany of Dungeness, but didn’t have anything specific that I wanted to see in mind. I wanted to discover some surprises for myself on this occasion, and practise keying difficult plants in the field.
Owing to Dungeness’s dry, poor soil conditions, viper’s bugloss is absolutely abundant. I’ve never seen so much of the stuff growing – it can be found over the whole area in profusion. I also noticed wood sage, just about everywhere. I did note that most of it was quite ‘stunted’, almost in sort of dwarf form – perhaps owing to the harsh environment.
I found a pretty example of common dodder Cuscutum epithymum. This weird, tangled looking plant is hemi-parasitic on other plants – often gorse – of which there is plenty here. In some places you can see great masses of the stuff sprawling out over the ground in great reddish swathes. In this case, it appears to be engulfing the already stunted wood sage.
The rare, localised Nottingham catchfly was quite an easy find around the wider Dungeness site. I had heard about this plant and was quite keen to see it. The catchflies are a pretty weird group of flowers – their petals curl closed during the day, unfurling at night so the plants’ scent fills the nocturnal air to attract moths. The moths fly from flower to flower and pollinate. As you may be able to tell from the photo, I took this photo lying on my belly, as I wanted to capture the plant with its habitat in shot. I got a photo I was reasonably pleased with, but was mildly accosted by an inquisitive dog in the process, to my annoyance.
I wanted to have a look at some aquatic plants whilst here, to see if I might find anything unusual. I was wondering what might find a niche on the shingly edges of the shallow gravel pits near the power station. I didn’t find anything especially unusual, but a fine display of common water and wetland plants such as purple loosetrife, lesser spearwort, water mint, ragged robin and beautiful sprays of water plantain. I was particularly interested in these fine specimens of branched bur-reed.
In fact, I was so in awe of their weird spikey male flowers (larger than the female flowers) that I dropped my phone in the water as I took photos. The rather pretty ringed china mark moth in front of me probably distracted me from holding a firm grip on the phone as well.
Anyway, the phone is miraculously absolutely fine. An absolute credit to Motorola.
Satisfied with my foray into common waterside plants, I wanted to see if I might find anything more unusual around the sandy margins of the ARC pits on the RSPB reserve. I’d heard of jersey cudweed growing in the area, but had no idea where. Apparently in some years its flowers grow in the hundreds, and others just in the tens.
I found plenty of scentless mayweed near the viewing screen over the ARC pit, as well as common storksbill. Large flowered evening primrose was probably the most conspicuous flower in the locality – not a native, and not rare, but a nice splash of yellow nevertheless.
My favourite plant in this area was knotted pearlwort. I feel lucky to have found it, with it being such a diminutive little flower with stems that look rather moss-like. It grows in damp, open places like dune slacks. So the sandy, damp location by the edge of the gravel pit where I found it seemed entirely fitting with that. I regret that I didn’t get great photos of it.
Other finds of the day included the rare sea pea, as well as the more unobtrusive looking Canadian and blue fleabanes.
By about 5pm I was done for the day, but I am far from finished here. Dungeness pulls you back time and time again, no matter what your area of interest is. I think it’s my favourite little corner of Kent.
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