This week I have mostly been…..

Flanders Moss NNR

This week I have been mostly …. mixing up the practical getting your hands dirty tasks with the leading groups tasks.

With the pond dipping platform finished I started the work to bring the water close to the platform. A lot of barrowing peat and vegetation around the site.

Also one of the sluices in the wood chip dams has failed. The dam has been working so well that water came over the dam next to the sluice and wore away a gap. Some more plastic piling sheets have been added to the sluice and water is already backing up again wetting up a good chunk of bog. This sort of work saves on gym membership.

The rest of the week has been working with 3 local schools on the Flanders Moss Under the microscope project.

Great fun watching the children take a deep breath, slow down, focus and really start to observe the bog. Some great pieces of art in development.

Part of the project involves going back into the schools and looking at the bog plants under the microscopes.

This is a  midge eye view of a sundew, tentacles with sticky glands on the end.

And this is an individual sundew tentacle. These things are so cool. They can be moved by the plant individually in any direction and coordinated by minute electric currents. They act as detectors of prey, they secrete the midge trapping sticky gunk and also the midge dissolving chemical that enables the plant to supplement its diet with liquidized midge. That is some bit of kit.