......and from Tom ....After Bracelet bay, I always stop off at Oystermouth long-stay car park. The car park is made from the Black Lias, and is actually a SSSI for the geology and tremendous range of fossils. In particular a number of brachiopods and a trilobite first described there and named after Oystermouth.
Today, I wasn't primarily there for the fossils though, as in the quarry there is also a small cave. This cave, with an entrance of around 1x2m , isn't particularly pleasant, with only crouching room and a distinct smell of fox urine and percolating water dripping from the ceiling. This is, I think, the most easterly of the 'Gower' limestone caves.
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| The cave entrance, shrouded with ivy. |
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| The reason for the distinct fox urine smell: a fantastic view of a fox in daylight (around 3pm). |
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| More views of the fox, investigating the cave. |
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| One of the most characterful inhabitants of the cave: Meta menardi, the cave spider. The 4th largest UK species of spider, it is frankly stunning in colour. However, understandably the idea of me crawling into a damp cave to look for giant spiders is frowned upon by my flatmates. |
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| More cave spiders. |
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| A fungus gnat (a common cave inhabitant and food for the spiders), a cave spider and herald, and a cave spider egg-sac. |
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| One of my favourite photographs of the few herald moths found. One of the couple of UK moths that hibernate, it's fantastic to see them roosting in a natural habitat. |
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| Heralds. |
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| Clement's Quarry (above the cave). |
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