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, and together with the former
railway line provides a
circular walk round the reserve.
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.
Dunbarnie view across
the
reserve to the north
(C)Albert Lawrie
Wildlife
The reserve shows a
typical range of duneland habitats:
The
foredune just above the tideline, 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
('slacks') with short, rabbit-grazed turf
and moss, which become
flooded in winter
to form fresh-water
'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. Along
with more widespread species, about 200
different flowering plants,
including about 30 grasses, grow on the
reserve.
Skylarks and meadow
pipits nest, while buzzards and kestrels are
frequently seen as they
hunt for rabbits and voles. The adjacent shore
(not
part of the reserve)
has a mosaic of rock, sand, mud and pools,
with a rich diversity of
seaweeds and animal life. This provides good
feeding
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 grasslands. So
far about 1100 kinds of insects and
230 other invertebrates have been
recorded.
Dumbarnie Waxcap (C)
Albert Lawrie
Historical
Perspective
In
the past these
links would probably
have been lightly grazed by cattle or
sheep, and
the rabbits would have been an
important source of fur; and meat.
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.
Dumbarnie main slack
(C) Albert Lawrie
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.
Dumbarnie Vipers
Bugloss
(C) Niall Corbet
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