The large car park in St Ives was once the site of Wheal Trenwith which was mainly a copper mine, although a small amount of tin ore was also extracted. Amongst the copper ore was a black crusty ore that miners thought was copper oxide, but smelting it proved unsuccessful so it was discarded on the waste tips. It was identified as pitchblende (a Uranium ore, containing other radioactive decay products of Uranium-238) but it was seen of no value. An account from 1843 states:
Pitch-blende occurs in great abundance among the copper ores of Wheal Trenwith, and was long carefully collected, and thought to be black copper ore. The low prices obtained for the ores with which it was mixed, and the inferiority of the metal they yielded, equally disappointed the miner and the copper-smelter; until a specimen of the copper was examined by Mr. Michell of Calenick, and found mixed with uranium in a metallic state. The ores were then inspected, and pitch-blende being discovered among them, its nature and prejudice to the copper ores were explained to the workmen, by whom it has been, of course, since rejected. Was there ever an instance in which an acquaintance with Mineralogy and Chemistry would have been more useful ?
By 1907, the economic value of radium was well understood and waste tips were being worked for this valuable ore; small pockets were also extracted from the shallower areas of the mine. Between 1911-1917 there were 694 tonnes of uranium ore recovered, mainly from the waste tips. There are reports that pieces of the pitchblende ore can still be found around the edges of the car park today. It is radioactive so handling pieces of the black rock is not advised.
The metallic minerals associated with outcrops of granite tend to occur in bands which radiate out from the granite outcrop. A band of tin deposits usually occurs closest to the granite, then beyond this a band containing copper ore. A band of zinc and lead deposits is commonly found further away from the granite, with just iron at the furthest extreme. The reason for the banding is that the deposition of each mineral occurs within a specific temperature range. Granite starts as a molten blob of magma which cools very slowly and provides a source of heat. The temperature of water in the cracks in the neighbouring rock therefore decreases with increasing distance from the hot granite.
Deep in the earth's crust where there is lots of sulphur and little oxygen (hence the smelly sulphur compounds around volcanic vents), copper occurs as crystals of sulphide compounds. Nearer the surface, chemical reactions with air and water form brick-red oxide and blue-green carbonate compounds and also copper sulphate. The latter is the blue stuff from school science lessons which you may vaguely recall is soluble in water; thus it became concentrated at the water table. In the Ice Ages that followed, Cornwall was scoured by glaciers which bulldozed away many of these concentrated deposits. Early copper mining took place on the few remaining areas of these surface layers, but it was not until innovations in pumping technology that copper mining could be carried out on the deeper sulphide deposits and these account for the bulk of the ore mined. The most common ore (called chalcopyrite) is a copper-bearing version of "fool's gold"; when pure it looks like gold but where it meets air and water, patches of iridescent green, blue and purple form and so it was known as "peacock copper".
Horses were first domesticated around 6,000 years ago on the plains north of the Black Sea between Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Genetic studies have revealed that there were several independent domestication events from different herds of wild horses and then the domesticated horses were widely interbred.
Alexanders are a member of the carrot family and grow along roadsides in places similar to cow parsley. The leaves are more solid than the lacy cow parsley leaves and the flowers are yellow rather than white. The name arises because the plant was introduced to the UK by the Romans and was known as the "pot herb of Alexandria". It is also sometimes known as horse parsley.
Periwinkle, also known as myrtle, is a native plant in Europe and both the greater (Vinca major) and lesser (Vinca minor) forms are common, both with blue-purple 5-petal flowers that resemble turbine blades.
The "greater" form has wider teardrop-shaped leaves whereas the leaves of the "lesser" form are thinner and lance-shaped. The flowers on the lesser form are also smaller.
The name may be from the Russian name for the flower - pervinka - which is based on the word pervi, meaning "first", as it is one of the earliest spring flowers. Some flowers start appearing in November.
During Victorian times and earlier, small amounts of land in Cornwall were measured by the goad - a unit of nine feet in length, derived from the name of the staff used to drive oxen.
An area of two goads square (18ft x 18ft) was known as a "yard of ground" or "land-yard". This is confusingly not the same as a "square yard" (3ft x 3ft). In fact one land-yard was 36 square yards!.
Larger areas of land were measured by the Cornish Acre defined as 160 land-yards (or 5,760 square yards). A unit of land consisting of 4 Cornish Acres was known as a "Knight's fee".
Ivy has two types of roots. The "normal" roots extend into the soil and collect nutrients. At intervals along the climbing stems there are also aerial roots which attach the plant to a surface. As they come into contact with a surface, the roots change shape to anchor the plant. They then produce hairs that wedge into any crevices. The roots also exude a chemical compound which acts as a glue.
The game of bowls dates from mediaeval times and was first clearly documented in the 13th Century. From the 14th Century, it was banned along with several other sports for being a distraction from archery practice. However bans on bowling continued long after guns had replaced the longbow due to the disreputable nature of bowling alleys which were often attached to taverns. Until 1845, labourers, apprentices and servants were forbidden from playing bowls except at Christmas under the supervision of their masters!
Crows are omnivores and their ability to eat anything from animal feed to potato chips has allowed them to capitalise on food sources created by humans. Their problem-solving skills also allow them to access food that less savvy animals cannot, for example tugging on bin liners and tucking each fold under their feet to raise the contents of waste bins in motorway service stations.
Before the school, this was the farmstead of Tregenna which has mediaeval origins. The foundations of a mediaeval chapel were visible in 1814 but this had been cleared by 1914 to build a cowshed. The main school building is built in one of the farm's fields and the playing field occupies another where sherds of pottery from the Early Mediaeval period have been found.
During late winter or early spring, if you encounter a patch of plants with white bell-shaped flowers, smelling strongly of onions, and with long, narrow leaves then they are likely to be three-cornered leeks. Once you're familiar with their narrow, ridged leaves, you'll be able to spot these emerging from late October onwards.
Three-cornered leeks are native to the Mediterranean and are first recorded as being introduced to the UK in 1759. By Victorian times, they had become well-established in the wild. They thrive in the moist, mild climate in Cornwall and are salt-tolerant so will grow almost anywhere, even on the coast.
The numbered stones were markers denoting the edges of the plot of land that belonged to a mine. The numbers run up to 15 and enclose an area of land between here and Steeple lane.
The woods were thought to have been managed as a mixture of woodland and pasture up until the 19th Century when the gaps were planted to form a continuous woodland. Many of the trees show evidence of being cut (either pollarding or coppicing) to provide a source of timber. The mine workings within the woods are the remains of tin and copper mines which date back to at least the 16th Century.
The fenced-off areas are mineshafts so don't climb over the fences! Later, at the top of the path, you'll see some "danger mineshafts" signs which refer to these.
Mine shafts were dug for several reasons as well as another way of getting people into the mine. One was to pump water up from the lower levels of the mine using a waterwheel or steam engine. Another was to haul ore and waste out of the mine (known as "winding") which was done with capstans and horses in the days before steam engines. The shafts associated with pumping or winding steam engines were often called "engine shafts". Mine shafts were also dug for ventilation and these are often marked as "air shaft" on maps.
Some mosses are able to absorb 20-30 times their own weight in liquid. Moss was used in several ancient cultures as nappies: babies were carried in a moss-lined bag to prevent leaks. Moss has also traditionally been used to line hanging baskets which are very prone to drying-out. Areas of moss help to protect soil from erosion by runoff and rivers from sediment and flooding by capturing rainfall and giving it chance to soak slowly into the soil.
John Knill was a charismatic Collector of Customs at St Ives from 1762-1782 and mayor in 1767. During his Customs role, it is thought that he might have engaged in a little smuggling himself as there are reports of him fitting out a privateer for the purpose. He built his own memorial: the 50 foot high triangular granite obelisk, known locally as "The Steeple". He also devised a quinquennial celebration which consists of a dinner for the Mayor, Vicar and Customs Officer and guests in the George and Dragon Inn. This is followed by a procession from the market house to the monument, lead by a fiddler with ten young girls (who had to be the daughters of either fishermen, tinners, or seamen) dressed in white, and two widows. The mayor, vicar, customs officer, girls, widows and fiddler then dance around the monument whilst spectators sing the hundredth psalm. The first was carried out in 1801, which Knill attended. In his will, he left money for the upkeep of "The Steeple" and for the celebration to take place every 5 years after his death on St James' Day, 25 July. The delightfully eccentric ceremony has been carried out every 5 years for over 200 years, though the changing industries in St Ives have required the constraints on trades of the young girls' fathers to be relaxed, and the Customs Officer now has to commute from Penzance.
The common name "foxglove" dates back many hundreds of years but the origin is unknown. The "gloves" almost certainly refers to the shape of the flowers, and the Latin name Digitalis (finger-like) is along similar lines. The curious part is the "fox" and many different suggestions have been made as to where it came from. It is possible that it is a corruption of another word. One suggestion is "folks" which was once used to mean "fairies".
Closer to the horizon, the sky fades to a lighter blue. The scattered blue reaching you from the horizon has to pass through even more air than the blue reaching you from directly overhead. The molecules of gas have more chance to intercept and re-scatter the blue light in different directions so that less blue light reaches you.
Although the fronds of bracken die back each year, the black underground roots are perennial and spread extensively, sending up fronds at intervals. The root system of one bracken plant can stretch up to a quarter of a mile across making bracken one of the largest plants in the world.
Blackberries are closely related to raspberries and technically neither is a berry but an aggregate of many individual tiny fruits, each containing a tiny stone like a miniature cherry.
As well as through pollen being transferred by insects from other plants, if there are not many insects around (e.g. in cold or wet weather), bramble flowers are able to produce seeds without being fertilised (the flower is able to use its own pollen).
Rhododendrons had already become established here by the 1920s and were sufficiently abundant that Bernard Leach harvested wood to fire his first kilns.
Honey made with rhododendron pollen can be poisonous to humans, causing severe low blood pressure and low heart rate if enough is eaten. Rhododendron honey is used in Nepal as a hallucinogenic drug.
There were a number of old copper and tin mines in this area including Wheal Comfort, Wheal Speed, Wheal Hazard, East and West Wheal Crack, Wheal Mary and Wheal Rose. By 1815 these had been aggregated into United Mines. In 1821 a dam burst and water poured into one of the shafts, drowning one of the miners below. In 1832 a new company was formed and the area was worked until 1877.
Many Cornish mines have names starting with Wheal, and it is a common misconception that Wheal meant "mine". In fact, Wheal simply meant "workplace". The word for "mine" was bal and the women who worked on the surface were known as Bal Maids.
The name is from the Cornish for "field", park, and "happy", lowen, but the exact intent of the meaning has been lost. It's certainly the case that the original happy field didn't include a 20th Century housing estate or even the Victorian mine waste tips that predated this. Most of the Celtic place names date back to the Dark Ages when Cornish was spoken even by the ruling classes which changed after the Norman Conquest in 1066.
In the UK, Cordyline australis can often reach around five metres high. In New Zealand it normally reaches around 8 metres. The largest specimen of the plant is thought to be around 500 years old, is 17 metres tall and has a circumference of nine metres at the base!
Research suggests that sycamore was common in Britain up to Roman times but then died out due to the warming climate apart from some mountainous regions such as in Scotland. During the Tudor period it is thought to have been reintroduced from southern and central Europe by landowners looking for a rapid-growing tree for their estates and was found to be salt-tolerant - essential in Cornwall.
Crocosmia (also known as Montbretia) is a garden plant in the iris family with bright orange flowers in summer. It has South African origins and was bred in France in 1879 as a garden plant hybridised from two wild plants, then introduced into the UK in the 1880s.
Despite their native habitat being woodland, wood pigeons are able to thrive wherever there is food. They have fared better than most birds with intensively-farmed crops and are particularly fond of oil seed rape. They are able to hoover up food quickly (up to 100 pecks per minute) and stuff large amounts into their crop (e.g. around 150 acorns!). They then digest this overnight.
During the 21st Century, wood pigeons have been migrating into urban areas where garden feeding has attracted them. There has also been an exodus from parts of the rural environment where changes to farming practices (e.g. daffodil growing or energy crops) has made fields less attractive.
During winter, from November to March, winter heliotrope is visible along the edges of roads and paths as carpets of rounded heart-shaped leaves.
From mid November to January, the plants produce spikes with pale pink flowers. The scent of the flowers resembles marzipan i.e. almond and vanilla. The chemical responsible for the scent (4-methoxybenzaldehyde) has been found to attract pollinators whilst also repelling ants. It is a very similar chemical compound to vanillin (hence the vanilla-like scent).
During winter, from November to March, winter heliotrope is visible along the edges of roads and paths as carpets of rounded heart-shaped leaves.
The leaf shape of winter heliotrope is similar to its close relative butterbur, but the leaf edges are more rounded than butterbur and the leaves are evergreen whereas butterbur puts up flowers before it has any leaves. Both plants spread via rhizomes (underground stems) and their broad leaves can crowd out other plants making them potentially invasive.
In January 1908 the Padstow cargo ship "Ystwyth" was transporting a cargo of coal. The weather worsened so the captain anchored near St Ives to wait for the storm to pass but the anchor cable snapped in the gale-force winds. Distress flares were fired as the vessel was driven towards the shore by the wind. The ship grounded on Gladden Beach in Carbis Bay when the tide was fairly high and settled upright onto the sand allowing the crew to escape. As the tide went out the ship was stranded on the middle of the beach but once the tide rose again she became a total wreck.
The beach is sometimes referred to as Barrepta Cove or Porth Reptor which are remnants of the original Cornish name for the beach, the exact meaning of which has been lost. This was documented as Parrupter around 1499 and Porthreptor in 1580. Porth rep tor can be translated as "beach beside the hill". However in Cornish, as well as "hill" or "high land", torr can also mean "gash" (which has similar roots to "torn" in English) which could apply to the long, thin Carbis Valley.
The name "Carbis" is from Carbis Farm which was recorded as "Carbons" in 1391. In Cornish karr means "cart" and pons means "bridge" so this is thought to mean "causeway" but no trace of any structure remains to which this could be attributed. It's possible it was a bridge crossing the stream in the Carbis Valley as part of the road to St Ives. It is said that to avoid Bubonic Plague reaching St Ives, money was left at the bridge and goods were dropped without any face-to-face contact.
When the St Ives railway was built, a station was created at the bottom of the Carbis Valley which the railway called "Carbis Bay" and this eventually became used as the name for the beach.
St Michael's Way is a 12.5 mile route on footpaths and some roads established in 1994 by Cornwall Council, waymarked with a symbol that looks a little like rays of light but is actually a stylised shell, based on the Council of Europe's sign for pilgrim routes.
The route is based on a prehistoric route from Lelant crossing the peninsula to Marazion. This avoided the need to negotiate the submerged rocks and strong currents at Land’s End. Later, St Michael's Way was used as part of a pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in North West Spain. It is believed that this route was a key factor in Cornwall's rapid conversion into a Christian faith.
The modern route has two different options for reaching Marazion. The more direct route involves crossing through A30 and A394 traffic followed by a path through Marazion marshes. The longer route is via Gulval towards Penzance and then doubling back along the coast path from Penzance to Marazion.
St Ives was the most important fishing port on the North Coast. The pilchard fishery in St Ives was the largest in Cornwall in its heyday during the mid 19th Century. The annual pilchard catch in St Ives frequently exceeded all of the rest of Cornwall combined. The largest recorded catch in St Ives was in 1847 when over 57 million pilchards were caught in a single day. At the end of the 19th Century, the pilchard shoals stopped coming inshore and the industry had died out by the early 1900s.
During the early 19th Century, visitors to St Ives commented on being overpowered by the smell of rotting fish emanating from the town. A number of pilchard cellars surrounded the harbour but by the 1920s these had either been demolished or converted for other uses (the St Ives museum was originally a pilchard curing cellar).
In October 1907, the St Ives-based Susan Elizabeth was on her way home with a cargo of coal from the Mumbles. She was driven onto the rocks at Porthminster Point by a gale. After many valiant attempts by the lifeboat, the crew were finally rescued just before the ship broke up. The remains were dynamited two years later.
In February 1901, the French ship "Julien Marie" was bound for Bordeaux with a load of coal from Swansea. The captain tried to make harbour in St Ives to escape a storm but due to large breakers and encumbrance caused by sails hanging down broken from a broken mast, this was impossible. The crew attempted to anchor but this did not hold and the six crew and their dog were rescued by the St Ives lifeboat before the vessel was driven onto the shore on Porthminster beach and became a total wreck.
In January 1908, the Falmouth schooner "Lizzie R Wilce" was on the way to St Malo in France with a cargo of coal from Swansea. She tried to enter St Ives harbour to escape a storm but missed the stays and struck Pednolver Point before being driven ashore on Porthminster beach. The crew were rescued by St Ives lifeboat and the ship then became a total wreck. The crew were safely landed in the harbour at 10:30 pm but because the sea was so rough, the lifeboat could not return to the lifeboat house and had to stay in the harbour until 2 am.
Just three hours later, another schooner on its way from Swansea - the Mary Barrow loaded with anthracite - attempted to seek shelter in St Ives harbour but grounded on a sand bar and was driven onto Porthminster Beach. In the very heavy sea, the lifeboat managed to anchor and position itself next to the wreck and the crew were rescued.
Photo of the "Mary Barrow" from 1908 at the National Maritime Museum
Photo of the "Lizzie R Wilce" from 1908 at the National Maritime Museum
During Victorian times, open air painting became popular and the scenery and mild climate of St Ives generated a reputation as the ideal place for marine painting (of the decorative rather than boat-keeping kind). Once the railway was completed in 1877, St Ives became more accessible. Around this time, the pilchard industry was in decline which resulted in many unoccupied net lofts, cellars and workshops. These became converted into artists studios, with the first recorded in 1885 which had been converted from a sail loft. In 1920, Bernard Leach arrived and went on to make St Ives internationally famous through his pottery. St Ives has continued to attract artists and is now considered to be one of the most important art centres in Britain. In 1993, the St Ives branch of the Tate Gallery opened (named after the sugar magnate Henry Tate of Tate and Lyle). Since 1978, there has been a St Ives September Festival which runs for 15 days during which many artists open their studios to the public.
St Ives has had a lifeboat since 1840, though the original was a rowing boat launched from the harbour. In 1867, the RNLI relocated it to Porthgwidden beach and built a boathouse for it. This was not well thought out as launching through the surf proved near impossible and so it was quickly replaced by a building in Fore Street. In 1911, a new boathouse was built on the quay which was better suited to launching the lifeboat which had become motorised by this point. This was finally replaced with the station you see today which was built in 1993 to accommodate a larger modern boat.
The RNLI was founded in 1824 under the original name of the National Institution for Preservation of Life from Shipwreck. It was renamed to the RNLI in 1854. Until 1890 all the lifeboats were rowed with oars until some steam-powered boats were introduced. By 1905, petrol-powered boats were being trialled and fairly quickly replaced the bulky steam-powered predecessors. Today a fleet of over 340 lifeboats provide a 24/7 search and rescue service around the UK. The charity has saved over 140,000 lives since it was set up.
The current church building dates from the early 13th century and the south aisle was added roughly a century later. The font is also thought to date to the 14th century and some of the carved bench ends are from the 15th century. In the churchyard is a late mediaeval lantern cross which is over 10ft high. The elevated churchyard is thought to have arisen due to the lack of space for burials resulting in a "multi-storey" approach being taken.
The St Ives Feast takes place on the Sunday and Monday nearest to the 3rd of February each year. It celebrates the founding of the town by St Ia and includes a procession to the holy well (Venton Ia) and a version of Cornish Hurling described as "much gentler than ... at St Columb Major".
During Victorian times, St Ives consisted of two quarters known as Upalong and Downalong, between which there was a fierce rivalry. Upalong, on the higher ground, was an area of farming and mining. Downalong, situated beside the harbour, was the realm of fishermen and sailors.
The herring gull is the gull most commonly encountered in Cornwall, with a grey back and red spot on their yellow beak. They live for around 12 years and are highly intelligent birds with strong communication and social learning skills. This has allowed them to evolve strategies to obtain food more easily by stealing it from humans, either when briefly left unattended or by swooping and grabbing from unsuspecting hands.
Whilst their pasty and ice cream stealing antics in coastal resorts might give the impression there are lots around, the coastal herring gull population dropped by about 50% from 1970 to the mid 1980s and the decline has continued with another drop of around 50% up to 2020.
Part of the decline in coastal herring gull populations can be explained by a migration of birds inland to urban areas. Birds have been driven inland in search of food and roosting sites due to declining fish populations and lack of undisturbed coastal nesting sites. In urban areas, streetlights allow gulls to forage by night and there is no longer much competition from red kites, which scavenged the rubbish tips in the Middle Ages.
At the time of writing, a survey of the inland populations is being carried out to determine the relative size of these vs the coastal population and if these are stable. The first datasets from some of the devolved UK Nations suggest that is unlikely to explain the majority of the decline. Since the 1990s, 96% of the population in Northern Ireland died out predominantly from botulism. It's thought that birds seeking food on rubbish tips might be bringing this back to colonies.
The herring gull is an example of a "ring species". In Europe, the lesser black-backed gull and herring gull are distinct species, yet as you circumnavigate the globe, the populations become more similar until they merge in the middle as a single species.
Herring gulls are able to communicate nuances both by altering the frequency and timbre of their calls - conveying, for example, the relative severity of a threat in an alarm call. They also analyse and remember the personality of their neighbours, ignoring more skittish birds but taking action when a more trusted bird raises an alarm.
The residents of St Ives were collectively known by the pejorative of "Hake" or "Hakeies" which is said to be based on the irreligious practice of fishing for hake on Sundays when most other fishermen stayed ashore to go to church.
You'm laid out like a ling is a Cornish dialect term indicating the observed person, dog etc. is laid out at full stretch without a care. The ling is a long, thin member of the cod family found on offshore reefs and wrecks.
Virginia Woolfe, the modernist 20th Century writer, was strongly influenced by spending every summer in the family's holiday home (Talland House) in St Ives during her childhood. In her own words: "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall?" She returned to Cornwall many times in her adult life to spend time walking.
Until Victorian times, St Ives was just a small fishing port. The town was transformed, and in fact mostly built, after the railway from St Erth was completed in 1877, connecting the white sandy beaches of St Ives to a wealthy population of Victorian holidaymakers. The tiny railway line, winding along the cliffs and bays, somehow managed to survive the closures by Beeching in the 1960s. It has now become a tourist attraction in its own right. During gales, the section along the dunes can become covered in sand and needs to be excavated before the service can resume. In 2019, Lelant Saltings station was closed following the creation of a new Park and Ride at St Erth (at what is described as the "multi-modal transport hub" by Cornwall Council, or by everyone else as a "station").
Turnstones are small wading birds which can often be seen scavenging for small crumbs of pasty along harbour fronts in Cornwall. Their name arises from one of their ways of finding food on the seashore: they are able to lift stones as large as themselves using their strong neck. As their pasty foraging skills suggest, they are very versatile feeders and will eat almost anything including dead animals.
Squirrels are rodents, closely related to chipmunks and slightly more distantly to dormice. The word "squirrel" originates from an ancient Greek word meaning "shadow-tailed", referring to the bushy tail of a squirrel. A family group of squirrels is known as a "drey" (also the word for a squirrel nest). A group of unrelated squirrels is known as a "scurry", though squirrels tend not to hang out in groups.
Grey squirrels were introduced to the UK from the USA in the late 19th Century and within decades they had replaced the native red squirrel in most parts of the country.
Compared to red squirrels, grey squirrels are able to eat a wider diet (including acorns), are larger so can survive colder winters, and are better able to survive in the fragmented habitats created by urbanisation. They are also thought to be carriers of a squirrel pox virus which they usually recover from but has been fatal to red squirrels, although red squirrels are now also developing some immunity.
To date, culling of grey squirrels has not reversed their domination of woodland habitat and alternative approaches such as planting food with contraceptives are being explored as a means to control the population. The theory is that infertile squirrels can compete for food against fertile squirrels, whereas culling can create a glut of food resulting in a higher number of squirrels surviving which replace those that were exterminated. Natural predators such as goshawks or pine martens also remove more grey squirrels than red squirrels. This is because red squirrels are more savvy having co-evolved with the predators so for example they recognise the scent of pine martens and actively avoid areas with this.
Squirrels assess each of their acorns before burying them. If an acorn is too light (which suggests it might have a hole), the squirrel will eat it immediately rather than risking it going mouldy.
In order to later find the nuts that they've buried, squirrels need to be organised. Some species of squirrel have been studied and found to structure their hoards by type of nut e.g. burying all their acorns under one tree and all their conkers under another. This is equivalent to us organising all the veg onto one shelf of the fridge to make it easier to remember where to look for them.
As well as forgetting where they buried some of them, squirrels may also lose a quarter of their buried food to birds, other rodents and fellow squirrels. Squirrels therefore use dummy tactics to confuse thieves by sometimes just pretending to bury a nut.
Squirrels eyes are positioned on the sides of their head which allows them to spot predators approaching from behind them. When a squirrel spots a predator, its runs away in a zigzag pattern. This confuses many of their predators but unfortunately it doesn't work well for cars.
Young squirrels suffer a high mortality rate in the wild and less than one in three make it to adulthood. The ones that do, live on average for about 6 years, although a lucky one can live to about 12 years old. In captivity, where there are neither predators, cars nor cold winters to contend with, they can reach 20 years old.
By using their tail as a parachute, squirrels are able to survive falls from high trees. This allows them to attempt risky jumps between treetops that don't always work out. They are one of the few mammals that can (but not always) survive an impact at their terminal velocity i.e. if a squirrel jumped out of an aeroplane, it may well survive.
In urban areas in cold countries such as Canada, a black form of the grey squirrel is more common which is able to withstand the cold better both by retaining more heat and also having a slower metabolism. In wilderness areas where predators are more common, the black squirrels don't seem to do so well, perhaps because they are less camouflaged against trees than the grey ones.
Cockles and clams look fairly similar, but cockles have much thicker shells. There are a few different varieties of various shapes and sizes.
In the cockle department, you're most likely to encounter dog cockles which get their name because they are tough if overcooked; however if cooked correctly they are very good to eat and taste of almond (and are known as Amande de Mer). They have an almost round, slightly ringed shell which is smooth on the outside but has some grooves on the inside edge. The common cockle has a heavily ridged shell, but do not seem to live up to their name in Cornwall.
Clams generally have smoother, more delicate shells. Venus clams have a porcelain-like shell with rings and are about the size of a golf ball. The surf clam is larger, often around the size of your hand and has patterning resembling a mussel.
Cockles and clams can be collected by raking them from the sand at low tide. The Magna Carta grants every English citizen the right to collect up to eight pounds of cockles/clams from the seashore per day.
There are several reasons why seagulls should not be fed.
One is that human foods are not nutritionally suitable for seagulls but seagulls are not smart enough to know these can damage their health.
Another is that seagulls become dependent on humans and lose the skills to obtain food from natural sources.
The reason most affecting us is that feeding seagulls makes them less scared of humans. Since seagulls do not have have the emotional wiring to empathise with humans, fear is the only thing preventing that interaction being aggressive. Seagulls are innately aggressive when it comes to food as their behaviour with other seagulls demonstrates. There are many examples of children being attacked (who then drop food, reinforcing the behaviour).
Porthminster beach is sandy at all states of the tide. It is the second largest beach at St Ives (after Porthmeor) with nearby parking and facilities at the top of the beach so it can get pretty crowded in summer especially at high tide. On a low spring tide, it joins up with the beach at St Ives harbour, making it possible to walk between the two along the sand.
A drainage pipe, carrying rainwater run-off from the coast - effectively a stream in a pipe - empties beneath the beach. This can cause a bubbling hole to appear in the beach when there has been a lot of rain. It has "swallowed" a couple fences intended to keep the public away from it and the tabloid media have melodramatically described it as a sinkhole but it is more like quicksand caused by the flow of water. It is therefore wise to keep clear of it.
The beach faces northeast and is sheltered by Porthminster Point on which the large trees help to act as a windbreak. There is a sandy beach at all states of the tide. At low tide, the beach joins with Porth Kidney, with sand stretching all the way to the Hayle river at Lelant.
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