Salt Marshes and the wonder of Crabs

After a hectic weekend doing a Bio Blitz at Brockholes Nature Reserve,the first really warm day for six weeks gave me the chance to visit a wonderful place,the salt marshes and high tide marks at Cockerham sands.The area around the marshes is a absolutely wonderful natural piece of unspoilt nature,but a word of warning please do not wander too far out on to the mud flats unless you can read the beach, as the sign at the high tide mark gives you a warning why.

Some very soft sand/mud out there.
This area is part of the Lancashire Coastal way and is a walk i would strongly recommend as some of the nature and flowers you will see is quite stunning.

Signposted all the way along the walk.
On the day i was there ,the fields were full of Hares a wonderful animal that lives above ground and nests in shallow scrapes on the Field floor the young are called Leverets and many crossed the road in front of my car as i drove slowly down to my parking place,much larger than Rabbits they make a fantastic sight as they box each other rearing up on their hind legs.
The pathways are strewn with wild flowers and with all the flowers the insect life is varied and unusual.

Birds foot Trefoil a favourite of many Butterflies.

Thrift.
As i was walking along the pathway a sudden flurry of movement to my right was followed by a pair of Lapwings diving and screaming,a Stoat had claimed one of their chicks and was carrying it away ,all of a sudden a pair of Oyster catchers joined in the mobbing of the Stoat who taken by surprise dropped its meal, it was so sad to see the Lapwing parents near their dead youngster.
I made my way down to the low water mark where i turned a few rocks over and some large crabs were hiding buried in the sand/mud, this time of year is special for crabs as they make their way back to shallower water from their overwintering grounds in the deeper sea,the male crabs appear first and as the crabs have a exoskeleton,which means it is on the outside of its body to get bigger they must split this old shell and emerge with a new soft body that takes two to three days to get rock hard,as soon as the males have finished this peeling process the females emerge and start to shed their shells as well, as they can only mate when they have shedded their old shell and are soft but the earlier peeled males whose new shell has now hardened are able to protect them and can be very aggressive if disturbed.

Male Crab you can tell by the pointed segment in the middle of the picture the female is more rounded.

Female Crab with more rounded segment.

A Crab shedding its old shell you can see the soft new shell under the the old hard shell that's being cast off.
The crabs when casting off the old shell absorb some of the calcium to help make the new one, and then the crabs fill themselves up with sea water this then causes the weaker old shell to split and they emerge ,soft as jelly but much bigger, they are very vulnerable at this stage and fish and seabirds hunt them with great vigour.
The high tide mark can also be a great place to explore the debris washed up and many surprises can be found from Ray and Dogfish eggs to Seashells and other wonders more of which i will explore in future blogs.

A huge tree trunk at the high tide mark.

A high tide line full of interesting things.
And right on the high tide mark was a fungi i had never seen before showing how these remarkable plants can thrive in any environment.

A type of Fungi i have never seen before and i am researching the species.
I really hope you are enjoying the warm weather and keep your eyes open there are lots of butterflies emerging at the moment and the Dragonflies and Damselflies are also emerging take care Nature Man Andy.