Dumbarnie
Links Reserve
is a small remnant of calcareous dune grassland in the centre of Largo
Bay on the south coast of Fife.
This is a rich wildlife habitat that
used to be
much more extensive along the eastern seaboard of Scotland.
The site was purchased in 1998 by
the Scottish
Wildlife Trust with help from Fife Council, and is open to the public
at all times.
Access
to the Reserve
The reserve can be reached on foot from Lower Largo along the beach or
via the Fife Coastal Path (1 mile); or from Shell Bay in the east along
the beach (1½ miles).
A footpath passes through the
reserve behind the
main dune.
Dunes are very vulnerable to
erosion; horse
riders should use the beach, dogs should be kept on the lead, and care
should be taken not to start fires.
PRINT OUT a copy of this Web page
and take it
with you when you visit the reserve.
The reserve shows a typical range of duneland habitats:
The foredune just above the tideline,
being
colonised by sea couch-grass, sea rocket and oraches. These can
tolerate the constantly moving sand and regrow each summer after being
covered by sand during winter storms.
The main dune ridge of unstable sand
rising
steeply from the beach and dominated by marram grass and the broader
leaved lyme grass.
A hummocky hinterland of more stable
grassland
covering most of the reserve, with a wealth of flowers throughout the
summer.
Hollows with short, rabbit-grazed
turf and moss,
which become flooded in winter to form 'winter lochs' as the
underground water-table rises.
The
grassland is rich in lime because of the fragments of
seashells in the sand. This enables the growth of many plants that need
these special conditions. Cowslips (and locally primroses) are abundant
in spring, followed in summer by purple milk-vetch, meadow
crane's-bill, common and greater knapweed, viper's bugloss and many
more.
Skylarks and meadow pipits nest, while buzzards and
kestrels
are frequently seen as they hunt for rabbits and voles. The adjacent
shore has a mosaic of rock, sand, mud and pools, with a rich diversity
of seaweeds and animal life. This provides good feeding for herons and
for waders such as curlew, redshank, turnstone and oystercatcher.
Offshore, terns and gannets can be watched in summer and a good variety
of northern wildfowl in winter, including long-tailed duck,
red-throated diver and all three species of scoter. Eiders are present
all year and used to nest on the links.
Butterflies, including common blue, small copper and
meadow
brown, and a great variety of land snails represent just a tiny
fraction of the vast diversity of insects and other invertebrate
animals characteristic of dune grassland
Historical Perspective
These links
were formerly part of the glebe of Newburn
Parish (now
combined with Largo) and would probably have been lightly grazed by
cattle or sheep.
The railway line, which forms the northern boundary,
operated
from 1857 to 1965.
A line of re-aligned anti-tank blocks, dating from the
Second
World War, now separates the reserve from the grazed land to the east.
Another legacy of the war is the pair of concrete pill-boxes.
Management
The variety of plants depends upon grazing, but at
present the
rabbits are sufficiently numerous that additional grazing by domestic
stock is not necessary.
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The
grassland is rich in lime because of the fragments of
seashells in the sand. This enables the growth of many plants that need
these special conditions. Cowslips (and locally primroses) are abundant
in spring, followed in summer by purple milk-vetch, meadow
crane's-bill, common and greater knapweed, viper's bugloss and many
more. 
These links
were formerly part of the glebe of Newburn
Parish (now
combined with Largo) and would probably have been lightly grazed by
cattle or sheep. 
