Cornwall Wildlife Trust Page 16 Wild Cornwall - No. 83 Autumn 2000
Considering the length of the Cornish coastline it is inevitable that many of our nature reserves are influenced by the marine environment. This influence will vary from a West Penwith heathland site such as Chûn Downs, where you can smell, taste and - mist permitting - see the sea, to a large sand-dune site like Upton Towans, where you are right by it, or to what could be our first true marine nature reserve, Looe Island, where you are quite literally in the sea.
COASTAL NATURE RESERVES
The Trust manages a number of coastal nature reserves, each with its own variety of habitats and features of interest. Three of these sites, Kemyel Crease, Phillips's Point and Ropehaven Cliffs, are on the South West Coast Path and have large numbers of visitors passing through them each year. These sites have all had new information boards produced as part of our Heritage Lottery Fund project, with Ropehaven Cliffs being the most recent board to be installed. The boards give us an opportunity to describe the site, often referring to the marine interest, and provide excellent publicity for the Trust's work.
The Fal-Ruan and Tamar Estuaries are very significant coastal nature reserves and, although they are best described as large areas of mud, they provide vital feeding grounds for large numbers of waders and wildfowl. Monitoring the bird populations is an integral part of managing these sites.
Monitoring is likely to be a key feature in the Trust's involvement with Looe Island. The intertidal habitats and rocks that surround the island hold a wealth of information on marine life and the Trust will endeavour to use its expertise to study this fascinating environment.
The island itself is a wonderful place and some of the Trust staff and volunteers have been fortunate enough to visit in order to help with work on the footpaths. If anyone is interested in learning more about Looe Island there are two excellent books available from the Trust.
SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW...
It seemed a strange request when earlier this year someone asked for one of our old nature reserve signs, particularly when they offered to pay for it. When I realised that the reserve was Kemyel Crease and that the request had come from one of our German colleagues at NABU, things started to fall into place. Rudiger Wohlers and Heike Neunaber had been so taken with Kemyel Crease following a visit to Cornwall that instead of wedding presents they had asked for donations to be made to the Trust; this helped to fund a new information board for the site.
When Rudiger saw that we were replacing the old CTNC sign with a new Cornwall Wildlife Trust sign, paid for by our HLF project, he jumped at the chance of buying Heike a novel anniversary present. We have recently installed new signs on many other nature reserves, so if anyone feels romantically attached to Nansmellyn Marsh, Breney Common, Red Moor etc. ... please don't be shy to ask!
Callum Deveney
A sign of our times - the new reserve signs emphasise our link to The Wildlife Trusts' nationwide network of nature reserves.
Photo: Callum Deveney
Island ahoy! Looe Island is on its way to becoming a true marine nature reserve for the Trust, thanks to the generosity of its owner Miss Atkins.
Photo: Tony Stebbing
Continued .....
