In amongst the bracken

Ouaisné Common is a wild, wild place. Which is a bit ironic, because it’s completely hemmed in by human settlement and development. In the summer, we’re told, tourists flock to the Mediterranean clime of its beach, and various bars and cafes make good business. But come to Ouaisné as winter is encroaching, and stand at the edge of the sand facing the mouth of the bay, where the buffeting gale pummels you with murderous force, and you won’t be able to imagine such a thing.

It’s bitingly cold, and there is rain in the air. Jagged escarpments of granite fall away into the headland of Corbiére, shifting shadows lost in restless waves, and surreally enough it’s like a scene from Homer’s Odyssey. Despite the weather and the time of year, the water is a startling Aegean blue. Frothy white tips betray a sullen anger.

I pull my hood up over my head as we endure the first spatter of rain, and then the wind becomes too much and we duck into the shelter of the coastal protection wall, constructed by the Germans during the Occupation in 1940-45. We’re on the Common.

Ouaisné (pronounced ‘Way-nay’) is actually one of Jersey’s richest and most diverse nature reserves. We’re here because, among other things, it’s now the last natural breeding site of the Agile Frog, Rana dalmatina, in the British Isles. Ouaisné’s history and current predicament reminds me of Pulpit Hill. The Common was originally an expanse of sand dunes, again kept sparse by the grazing of livestock such as sheep, cattle and horses. Tenants of the community also had rights to harvest bracken (for animal bedding) and gorse (for fuel and human bedding), but since the 17th century these practices have gradually fallen away, and now the dunes are reverting to wild heathland. The only bit of grazing these days is done by rabbits, who now play an important role in controlling scrub. But it’s a difficult task to bring the dunes back, since the German wall has cut off the sand flow from the beach.

The bracken, the gorse and the bramble love this. They demonstrate it by proliferating madly along the Common in huge, dense clumps twisting towards the sky in tangled glory. We walk in amongst this writhing mess, out of the wind, into a singularly strange landscape. It’s bleakly beautiful. In places the ground is moist and spongy, adorned with colourful mosses. In other parts, efforts have been made to cut the scrub back, and thick blackened stubs stick out of a ground overlaid with grey powder.
Sometimes the bracken has grown so high it claws up above our heads, and we have to stoop and squeeze and wriggle our way through. Daunted, and a little afraid, we push in, our passage punctuated by curses and cries of pain. The bracken is not kind, and there are sharp little bits lying in wait everywhere to poke you and snag you as you go past. The delicate scent of mint, crushed underfoot, floats up around us. Above us, the wind continues to bluster.

The pond where the frogs breed is all dried up. It’s now a gentle, shallow dip in the surrounding landscape. It’s so unassuming that at first I don’t even realise it’s supposed to be a pond. The most remarkable feature about it is the entrance to a rabbit burrow, a gaping hole, set into the earthen bank just below the lip of the pond. There’s nothing else to be seen. And then Bahir, ever the herpetologist, pounces upon a single frog, and suddenly there's something to be excited about.

Jersey’s Agile Frog is suffering. It’s a small, nondescript little thing, and it’s doomed (“If it’s so agile,” Richard Grisdale the ex-archaeologist asked, “why is it endangered?”). Otherwise common throughout Continental Europe, it’s not on the IUCN RedList, but due to its desperate situation on Jersey (it’s considered to be the most endangered amphibian in the British Isles), Durrell Wildlife has classified it as locally Critically Endangered. Numbers and range have been declining since the 1900s. The main culprit is poor water quality, on top of already low water levels. But the intensified property development around the beach doesn’t help either, and neither do the introduced cats and ducks which eat up the frogs and their spawn.

DWCT actually started a captive breeding and reintroduction programme, but one of the reintroduced populations was completely wiped out by a pesticide spill into their pond (doh!). Now the only remaining wild population is the one at Ouaisné…but it can’t even remain viable without being propped up by direct human intervention…so…you end up asking yourself the question: What’s the point anymore, really? …

We return the lone individual back to the damp moss, and leaving the shelter of the bracken, return ourselves to the open emptiness of the sea. The sun’s beginning to set, and it’s casting an eerie glow across the seething greyness of the sky. We’re given a few minutes to wander along the wall, to climb up and lean into the wind. The darkness is falling like a pall.

As if on cue, the fitful rain starts pelting down on us. We’re running now, freezing, flinging ourselves into the dry warmth of the taxi. This field trip, by unspoken agreement, is over and we’re ready for the comfort of Les Noyers.

The taxi backs up and turns. Trundling stolidly up the winding country road, we leave Ouaisné behind.