Report - 092 19.09.18 Woodhuish
On Wednesday 19th September 9 members met in the National Trust Woodhuish car park, close to a fine specimen tree of an Italian alder. It resembles a pear tree with its dark green, shiny leaves, and comes from S. Italy and Corsica. The first part of the walk was down a steep green lane with Sycamore being the dominant track side tree, along with some superb blackberry bushes. On arriving at a junction we took a shady green lane noting how the lane had been carved out of the hillside, revealing the underlying rock structure of shattered slate topped by sand and stones from when the area was covered by water that brought sand and small pieces of shattered rock A couple of Sycamores had huge leaves with Tar spot disease and puff balls were just appearing in the centre of the lane. After chambering over a stile we took a track through a valley bottom field, where over a hundred sheep and a herd of cows were grazing. A hairy caterpillar resting on a dock leaf was identified back home as a Knot Grass . The bottom of the valley was wet and numerous clumps of Candle or Common Rush (Juncus communis) thrived some well grazed. A Grey heron was flushed out. A little lower down Watermint (Mentha aquatica) flourished, its lilac pink round flower heads intermingled with the last yellow blooms of Common fleabane (Pulicaria dysenterica).Mallard and Teal were seen on the open water where large clumps of Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) had established itself. At which point a young farmer appeared informing us that we were trespassing and gently directed us to a gate about 20m away. We were soon on Mansands beach. On the grassy edge we noted Sea beet (Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima), Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) , Hoary mullein (Verbascum pulverulentum), Mugwort (Artemesia vulgaris, Sea mayweed (Tripleurospermum maritimum) and some dwarf growing Hemp agrimony (Eupatorium cannabinum).The beach above the tide line was a mixture of mostly thin rocks, and small boulders with numerous white veins of quartz or calcite. The lower beach was basically dark brown large grained sand. We eventually crossed the outlet from the pond, to a ruined quay and a single lime kiln, before taking another green lane back to the car park. The little yellow flower spikes at the track side were Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria) a member of the rose family. Bird watching down on the pond(open water area) proved very rewarding with good views of Snipe and a Water-rail. Other than a Kestrel, now regarded as ‘Threatened’ in England, there was nothing special to be seen from a bird hide. A slog uphill brought us back to the car ark. We had for the complete walk been sheltered from the wind and enjoyed spells of sunshine. It was comfortably warm so most of us moved on to the National Trust Scabbacombe Car Park and made use of a large picnic table to eat our pack lunches. This was only part of the morning’s outing where we experienced the wind. We should have had a cake, wine or something similar to celebrate and congratulate Mary who earlier in the week had completed walking, in stages, the whole National coastal footpath - what an achievement!