Germination

All over the reserve, all sorts of seeds are germinating.

We don’t often see ducks on our big pond. These are male mallards perhaps pausing in the reserve on their way to wider waters on either the Avon or the Biss.

Pictures by Cheryl Cronnie

The Wildlife Wheel is getting old. The weathered and cracked wood is supporting a whole landscape of lichens that are colouring in the carvings.

Dogs and the wetland scrapes

When we planted up the wetland scrapes in Lambrok Meadow, a reader asked why we try to persuade people to keep their dogs out of the scrapes and how dogs can damage biodiversity.

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Lichens

These are densely packed crustose lichens, on the bark of a young birch tree in Sheepfield Copse. Groups of lichen species are often consistently associated together, forming recognisable communities. It is probable this is a community, containing several species of Arthonia, that grows on smooth barked trees.

Next time you walk through the copse, pause for a closer look at the trunks of the birch trees there.

Bluetit factoid

Most birds can’t create pigments, other than melanin, on their own. This bluetit, high in the park’s canopy, can’t produce the pigment, carotene, that makes his tummy yellow; it comes from pigments in the green caterpillars he eats. The more caterpillars he eats and the brighter his tummy, the more likely he is to attract a mate.

Header picture by DKG; others CC0 from pixabay

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