Penglais Woods, Aberystwyth

With my dissertation taking up the majority of my time its nice to get out at any chance I can. Luckily for me some months ago I had decided I'd help co-lead a botanical walk with Sam, in search of the Purple Toothwort Lathraea squamaria.

Although very little is flowering at this time of year which led us to look mainly at some of the fern species which could be found within the woodland in the build up to seeing the toothwort. Purple toothwort is an introduced species to Britain, it was first brought in with the roots of imported trees, which due to it's parasitic nature allowed it to establish. The closest native populations are only a short hop across the channel in France and Belguim.

The Penglais wood's toothwort is a bit of an oddity, mainly due to its choice of host, which seems to be a Metasequoia compared with the usual Salix and Populus it usually grows on.

Chapel Lawn, Shropshire

Rusty-Back Fern, Asplenium ceterach

With the amount of work I have to do in preparation to finishing my final year of University stopping me from being out in the field much, any excuse to go out with Tony and try and ring some birds is hard to resist!

Whilst looking for Dipper Cinclus cinclus nests and colour ringed birds in south-west Shropshire close to Chapel Lawn, we came across a small bridge ,covered in Rusty-back Ferns Asplenium ceterach and Maidenhair Spleenwort Asplenium trichomanes. The rusty-back fern is a lover of alkaline rocks, meaning the local limestone is perfect, whilst the maidenhair spleenwort has a large number sub-species of subspecies, some of which are calcifuges whilst others a calcicoles.

In the end we didn't see any Dippers on this stretch of river but we did go on to catch and ring a 6M Tawny Owl Strix aluco (my 109 species ringed) and a nice brace of Jack Snipe Lymnocryptes minimus, probably the last of the year and some cracking views of Tree Sparrows Passer montanus up on the Ceri ridgeway.