NATURE
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5 | | 
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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