Wales welcomes rare species

Feathered friends and fungi are the stars of South Wales for A Rocha UK’s Partner In Action, The St Madoc Centre.

Over the past few months the Gower-based team have been busy clearing bracken from the headland at The St Madoc Centre – which is named after a sixth century church planter. And they’ve uncovered some surprises.

VERY SCARCE

Bracken may be good for some species such as adder – but not especially useful for a wide range of rarer plants, fungi and bird species. So the team were encouraged to see the return of chough to the site this autumn – and in numbers probably never previously recorded.

Chough is a scarce breeding bird in the UK. It’s largely confined to cliffs of south and west Wales – with a few pairs in Cornwall. Chough need open ground with a plentiful supply of insects to thrive, and it seems as if the new habitat at The St Madoc Centre is just right for them.

But it’s not only the birds that are doing well. Several new waxcap species have been recorded. Waxcaps are a family of fungi that, like the chough, enjoy open ground. One of the new species is especially rare.

‘One of the waxcap species recorded on the site this autumn may be only the third record for the whole of Wales,’ said local ecologist and A Rocha UK conservation advisor Peter Sturgess.

NEW SPECIES

‘It’s thrilling to see habitat management at The St Madoc Centre paying dividends,’ said A Rocha UK Conservation Director Andy Lester.

‘While we can’t attribute habitat management alone to the occurrence of these species, it’s highly likely that the work carried out over the past months has been responsible – at least in part – for the arrival of new species and the sudden increase of chough.’ (Photo of a Red-Billed Chough: Steve Hughes)