Beginning botany...
This year, I am taking part in regular wildlife sessions in Rothbury with a group of other young people. The aim of these sessions is to get the John Muir award - every couple of weeks we meet and go out into the Northumberland National Park to find out about wildlife. Each session has a theme - yesterday we were learning about woodlands and woodland plants.
We all met in Rothbury at 9:30. We headed straight to our first stop, a small ancient woodland not far from the town. Here we learnt how to identify a range of trees, and we found out about some of the wildflowers on the woodland floor. This was useful as I recognised many from the woodland near my house, but didn't know the names - I will try to learn them from now onwards.
At this woodland we also saw a pair of Dippers with a nest and a male Orange-tip butterfly. The plants we saw included Wood Sorrel, Lesser Celandine and Goldilocks Buttercup. I also heard my first Willow Warbler of the spring.
Next, we travelled to a verge which had many of the flowers we had learnt about. We walked along the verge recording the wildflowers - this gave us a good opportunity to practice identifying them. We had lunch here before heading off.
Next we headed to Simonside, where we stopped at an area of new planted trees amongst the timber forest. Here I spotted a Tree Pipit, which was holding a territory. We went into the trees in search of lichens - we were given a sheet with some basic species to spot. We found five of them - Oak Moss, Shaggy Strap Lichen, Dotted Ribbon Lichen, Bearded Lichen and Cartilage Lichen. However, while we were looking for lichens, another member of the group called me over to look at a moth they had found. It was a stunning male Emperor Moth, resting on a rowan tree. I was over the moon to see one - the whole group were shown it.
Soon after seeing the moth, we were called to another part of the plantation. someone had spotted an Adder. The snake settled down and we had a good opportunity to look at it before we left it alone.
We then went to another part of the timber forest and planted some Willow trees. These early flowering trees are a very important source of nectar for early bumblebees. In the area where we planted the trees there were many Siskins, and we also saw a frog.
Next we went to visit a 400 year old Ash tree nearby, before heading back to Rothbury. Overall a fab day - I can't wait 'til the next session, the focus being birds!
