A Walk Back Through Natural History

A beautiful midsummer evening meant that the 25 people who came along to the Carmarthenshire Bogs Project’s visit to Pyllau Cochion Common, near Horeb, had a fascinating time.

Pyllau Cochion is one of six commons with important bog habitat. The spongy peat meant that wellies were the order of the day and the group set off through the bog, led by Sam Bosanquet from Natural Resources Wales, to discover how bogs were formed and to find out more about the fascinating wildlife that live there.

Sam described how bogs are formed over thousands of years – by pushing probes down through the peat it was shown that it was over 6 m deep – that’s 6000 years of peat formation! The group saw close up some of the distinctive range of plants that make up the bog – sphagnum mosses, cotton-grass, cranberry and the carnivorous sundew plant, with sticky droplets that entice and trap flies.

The group learnt that by looking at peat cores from bog habitats like these and the remains of plants and pollen within them that evidence of past changes in climate can be seen. Evidence of volcanoes that erupted thousands of miles away can be seen by the thin layer of volcanic ash (tephra) that falls on, and is captured by, the bog.

If you would like to see some pictures of the visit please click here.

From Carmarthenshire Biodiversity Partnership newsletter June to August 2014.