Animal Planet - Scotland secret wildlife
- 6 years ago
There is a hidden world of danger and mystery tucked away in North Ayrshire. A world that is forbidden to visit, save by the abundance of wildlife that calls it home. The Ardeer Peninsula is approximately 3km long and extends southeast from Stevenston towards Irvine.
The Ardeer site proved to be ideally suited to the manufacture of high explosives. When Alfred Nobel moved to the area in 1871, he described it vividly in a letter to his brother.
“Picture to yourself everlasting bleak sand dunes with no buildings. Only rabbits find a little nourishment here; they eat a substance which quite unjustifiably goes by the name of grass. It is a sand desert where the wind always blows often howls filling the ears with sand. Between us and America, there is nothing but water a sea whose mighty waves are always raging and foaming. Now you will have some idea of the place where I am living. Without work the place would be intolerable.”
Established in 1871, the Nobel Explosives Company was once one of the largest explosive manufacturing companies in the world, at its peak, employing nearly 13,000 people. The factory closed in the 1990’s after having been taken over and operated by Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) in 1926. Since the 1990’s nature has been left to reclaim the site, making it one of the most important sites for wildlife in the UK.
Local wildlife expert Iain Hamlin knows the area well and has studied it extensively. Iain was kind enough to contribute information to Where’s Wildlife in Ayrshire for the creation of this blog.
The Ardeer Peninsula is a large sand dune system in Stevenston, North Ayrshire. Much of the peninsula’s 400+ hectares have been developed for industry, but, historically, development was generally light, so the site remains characterised in large part by natural and semi-natural habitats.
The western fringe of the peninsula is dominated by 3 kilometers of crumbling sea wall. Stretches of these sea defenses are well-vegetated, supporting plant species typical of sea cliffs, such as Thrift, Wild Thyme and Scots Lovage. In places, the sea defences support Marram-dominated, dynamic foredunes. Along with the site’s other open sandy areas, they support several sand dune specialist invertebrates. Among the beetles, Dune Chafer, the darkling beetle Phylan gibbus and the hister beetle Hypocaccus rugiceps (Nationally Scarce A) are rarities. The latter species is largely restricted to sand dunes in western Britain between Wales and Ayrshire. The rare sand dune hoverfly Eumerus sabulonum (Nationally Scarce B) has an almost identical distribution. It is frequently encountered in the peninsula’s more sparsely vegetated, sandy areas, where its larval foodplant Sheep’s-bit grows. Similar, sparsely vegetated sandy areas are also the usual haunt of the tiny Flea Bee-fly (Nationally Scarce B), a dune specialist which can be found by searching the flower heads of yellow composites.
The Ardeer site proved to be ideally suited to the manufacture of high explosives. When Alfred Nobel moved to the area in 1871, he described it vividly in a letter to his brother.
“Picture to yourself everlasting bleak sand dunes with no buildings. Only rabbits find a little nourishment here; they eat a substance which quite unjustifiably goes by the name of grass. It is a sand desert where the wind always blows often howls filling the ears with sand. Between us and America, there is nothing but water a sea whose mighty waves are always raging and foaming. Now you will have some idea of the place where I am living. Without work the place would be intolerable.”
Established in 1871, the Nobel Explosives Company was once one of the largest explosive manufacturing companies in the world, at its peak, employing nearly 13,000 people. The factory closed in the 1990’s after having been taken over and operated by Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) in 1926. Since the 1990’s nature has been left to reclaim the site, making it one of the most important sites for wildlife in the UK.
Local wildlife expert Iain Hamlin knows the area well and has studied it extensively. Iain was kind enough to contribute information to Where’s Wildlife in Ayrshire for the creation of this blog.
The Ardeer Peninsula is a large sand dune system in Stevenston, North Ayrshire. Much of the peninsula’s 400+ hectares have been developed for industry, but, historically, development was generally light, so the site remains characterised in large part by natural and semi-natural habitats.
The western fringe of the peninsula is dominated by 3 kilometers of crumbling sea wall. Stretches of these sea defenses are well-vegetated, supporting plant species typical of sea cliffs, such as Thrift, Wild Thyme and Scots Lovage. In places, the sea defences support Marram-dominated, dynamic foredunes. Along with the site’s other open sandy areas, they support several sand dune specialist invertebrates. Among the beetles, Dune Chafer, the darkling beetle Phylan gibbus and the hister beetle Hypocaccus rugiceps (Nationally Scarce A) are rarities. The latter species is largely restricted to sand dunes in western Britain between Wales and Ayrshire. The rare sand dune hoverfly Eumerus sabulonum (Nationally Scarce B) has an almost identical distribution. It is frequently encountered in the peninsula’s more sparsely vegetated, sandy areas, where its larval foodplant Sheep’s-bit grows. Similar, sparsely vegetated sandy areas are also the usual haunt of the tiny Flea Bee-fly (Nationally Scarce B), a dune specialist which can be found by searching the flower heads of yellow composites.