HABITAT LOSS : In Memory of Bofarnel.

 What's wrong with this? You may well ask. At a glance it looks like a small meadow, which has been recently cropped for hay.

If you look closer, it was reseeded probably last year with an agricultural grass mix of Ryegrass and Timothy, giving no doubt, plenty of bulk but no variety.

I was alerted to the wildlife value of this meadow  over thirty years ago. I was given a letter sent to the County Wildlife Trust, and it was passed to me to have a look at the meadow.

The letter was from a pair of elderly sisters who had lived near the two meadows in question all their lives, were aware of their rather special wildlife interest and were concerned that they would be 'improved'.

In response, I first went there in 1988 and found a semi-improved meadow running down to a wet marshy bottom with a thick scrub and a line of old oaks alongside a stream running down to the River Fowey.

There was a wide border thick with Meadowsweet, Angelica, Water Mint, Valerian, Marsh Thistle, and, most especially the beetroot-red flowers of abundant Greater Salad Burnet,    (Sanguisorba officinalis.)Great numbers of small moths erupted from the vegetation as it was disturbed, and Meadow Browns, Ringlets and Gatekeepers flew around everywhere. Several Silverwashed Fritillaries  flew from bramble flowers to the foliage of the trees along the stream.

Sanguisorba officinalis, a rare plant in Cornwall. It favours a basic soil. Here it is growing in wet clay which is derived from the breakdown of Devonian silty shales which occur in this part of Cornwall.

 

The second meadow, downstream, was even wetter. In my 1988 visit I found extensive marsh and sphagnum bog which was being invaded by birch  and willow scrub. The even wetter conditions were home to bog plants such as Bog Asphodel and Cottongrass, shown below.Flea Sedge, Sphagnum moss and Sundew were also growing.

Bog Asphodel (Narthecium ossifragum)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                     Cottongrass ( Eriophorum angustiflium)

And the most interesting find in this meadow was Black Bog Rush,  also rare in Cornwall and also to be found on basic soil.The small bushy Bog Myrtle another lover of basic conditions was also growing.

Black Bog Rush (Schoenus nigricans.)

Immediately aware of the specialness of these meadows, I sent a list of the plants seen, with comments to the County Wildlife Trust, feeling that someone with more experience than me should take a look. Over the years however, there seemed to be little interest shown by the Trust.

My notes indicate I visited the meadows on several subsequent occasions. They refer to a visit in 1992 when I noted the meadow hadn't been cut for a couple of years and then in  May 1996 the meadow had been ploughed and re-seeded the previous year and in' 96 it had been cut for silage. although the eastern, boggy meadow was still scrubbing up. The wet-loving plants, including some Sanguisorba were now restricted to a narrow margin at the bottom alongside the wooded streamside.

Following my visit in 1996 I wrote to the then Trust director lamenting the loss and his response was I felt, rather negative, as he thought that the interest shown in the wildlife value had in fact triggered the farmer's action and he had refused the Trust's offer to purchase. The Trust had  the previous eight years in which to conduct an informative and constructive conversation with the farmer which may have in fact made him more sympathetic and I still feel that apathy or complacency on the part of the Trust had  caused the loss of this special and for Cornwall, a very unusual habitat.

This week  (July 2021) we re-visited the meadows. A hay crop had just been taken off the meadow, with a vestige of the previous marsh plants along the lower margin. Still, miraculously, a few Sanguisorba plants were hanging on. The lower ground was still very damp despite the current spell of hot dry weather.

The further, boggy meadow was changed beyond recognition. It must have has extensive and effective drainage as hay had been taken off this improved grassland  too, with neither scrub  remaining nor even traces of marsh vegetation, even in the stream side margin.

As a rider to this sad story, the hill beyond the meadows, once an open heath, has been partially taken in to both plantations of pines on some areas and arable cultivation in other parts, with this year, Miscanthus and maize crops. The remaining heath is being encroached by a scrub of gorse, birch, willow, bramble and pine saplings.- as pictured below.

The degenerating remaining heath on Bofarnel Down.

Small areas of land such as these which may seem insignificant, are quietly disappearing and their loss to wildlife is arguably of far greater importance and may well outweigh the cost of improvement and gain of small areas of more productive land to the landowner.