Tinderbox

Warmer lighter evenings and schools holidays is just the recipe for the all too common urban fringe wildfires. Fire of course can be a useful land management tool if in the hands of the right people, but as demonstrated by the extensive fire on Mynydd Garn y -fawr a few years ago can be damaging if done for the wrong reasons. A walk around The British heath today with its gorse, heather, dead bracken and molina grassland reminded me of one such incident at the same location about 15 year ago, wiping out most of the heath. Having surveyed the damage shortly afterwards it was had to believe anything could have survived. However, just a few months later as if to demonstate that fire is a useful tool the area produced its largest show ever of bog asphodel flowers. Many hundreds of plants dormant until the conditions were right.

Today's birds included my first spring wheatears seven in total, the odd meadow pipit, skylark, green woodpecker, a tree loving grey wagtail and grey heron.