Had to go up to Big Pit in Blaenavon for a meeting yesterday and I had a chance to take their new nature walk round one of the old spoilheaps. I've always known that ex industrial landscapes supported a rich range of flora and fauna, but I was unprepared for just how wide a range of species, and how beautiful it all was up close.
It helped that the sun was out,there was masses of heather in bloom, coltsfoot and plantains everywhere, loads of grasses, several types of broom and a couple of bedstraws plus all the creeping vetch type things plus some fine lichens, we saw lizards, bees, dragonflies, skylarks and several types of butterfly, even a little pond full of catttails and small willows. Apparently they have a good hundred species recorded on that one tip alone. Many of them are useful species in one way or another
All this on what was bare coal spoil just a couple of decades ago. Amazing, and rather inspiring.
It helped that the sun was out,there was masses of heather in bloom, coltsfoot and plantains everywhere, loads of grasses, several types of broom and a couple of bedstraws plus all the creeping vetch type things plus some fine lichens, we saw lizards, bees, dragonflies, skylarks and several types of butterfly, even a little pond full of catttails and small willows. Apparently they have a good hundred species recorded on that one tip alone. Many of them are useful species in one way or another
All this on what was bare coal spoil just a couple of decades ago. Amazing, and rather inspiring.