NATURE
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Southampton Water's mud flats | Stage 5
Glorious mud
Depending on the tide, you can walk along the stones and shingle and look at the bird life feeding on the mud flats. | | What look like boring, lifeless mudflats are actually teeming with millions of tiny animals - up to 80,000 invertebrates could be living in a single square metre of mud. No wonder it's such a popular refueling station for migrating birds on their way to places like Iceland and Scandinavia.
 | | Brent Geese |
The Solent is an important area for bird life - it's home to 103,000 waders (that's 8% of Britain's entire population) and 40,000 wildfowl (including about 22,000 dark bellied Brent geese, 60,000 dunlin, 5,000 teal).
Hard freezing conditions such as were experienced during five weeks in early 1963 is detrimental to shore life - and can have a devastating impact on the birds who cannot survive without their food source.
The hard shelled clam which is another alien species, brought in as eel bait from America - they survived the 1963 big freeze and are now plentiful on the shore.
 | | Sea-purslane |
Along the shoreline, look out for salt marsh plants like sea-purslane. It's got thick and waxy leaves to tolerate being submerged in salt water. Plants like this help bind the mud to create marshes which are invaluable for wildlife.
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