It's not often I head into the countryside and more or less ignore the birds, but yesterday I did just that. Following a recent conversation with John Oates when I let slip my new-found enthusiasm for pan-species listing, he kindly offered to show me as many of the trees around the lakes and in Clowes Wood as he could in a couple of hours. So yesterday morning I took him up on the offer.
In summary, I was shown 15 species of tree, seven species of fern, and three species of horsetail. Some were ones I had seen before but hadn't got around to ticking off, but many (mainly ferns) were entirely new.
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| Hybrid Black Poplar populus x canadensis |
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| Greater Horsetail |
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| Common Male-fern |
I probably haven't picked a very good time to get into plants. Everything is drooping, brown, vegetated and hard (i.e. even harder than usual) to identify. John did a fine job of finding trees and so forth for me, but its one thing being shown things and quite another getting to know them. It's definitely a work in progress.
I have ordered a Fern field guide and new camera batteries (I managed to use up two batteries during the morning) so when I go on my own I'll be better prepared.
This morning I went back, but to look at birds. I only had time to check Windmill Pool, but it was nice to be back looking at familiar species.
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| Juvenile Little Ringed Plover |
As you can tell from the above photo, it started to rain before I left.
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