Wow, I spent a weekend with Fenlander and a few other mates including Seoras recently. What a fab weekend. Do look out for his courses and go on them.
The environment is unique. As the whole area is flat and low lying, water dominates the environment. The aquatic parts of the weekend included trapping cray fish, sampling water cress, rescueing equipment from a bog, exploring a fenland nature reserve and much more.
Everyone contributed hugely to the weekend. Thanks folks for the rabbit and squirrel experience.
WYCH ELMS
Interestingly the fairly young woodland that the camp was in had some pretty full size wych elms reaching the canopy. Fenlander showed my a couple of small ones and I think I then identified a number of full size ones. They looked healthy. I don't know if there are some local resistant strains around the fens, but learnt later that a fairly local hybrid elm, the Huntingdon Elm, is thought to be fairly resistant to Dutch Elm disease.
MARSH HARRIERS
The trip to the nature reserve was great for plant identification and usage. Fenlander knows his stuff on plants and birds, and waterbuffalo! Having been licked to death by the latter we carried on our journey. Some feint cries above us were identified as being from the Marsh Harrier. I knew little about this bird, but soon learned that they have mating flights very high in the sky - often above the cloud base. Well impressed! Back home I learned they are pretty rare - only 150 breeding females in the country?
The environment is unique. As the whole area is flat and low lying, water dominates the environment. The aquatic parts of the weekend included trapping cray fish, sampling water cress, rescueing equipment from a bog, exploring a fenland nature reserve and much more.
Everyone contributed hugely to the weekend. Thanks folks for the rabbit and squirrel experience.
WYCH ELMS
Interestingly the fairly young woodland that the camp was in had some pretty full size wych elms reaching the canopy. Fenlander showed my a couple of small ones and I think I then identified a number of full size ones. They looked healthy. I don't know if there are some local resistant strains around the fens, but learnt later that a fairly local hybrid elm, the Huntingdon Elm, is thought to be fairly resistant to Dutch Elm disease.
MARSH HARRIERS
The trip to the nature reserve was great for plant identification and usage. Fenlander knows his stuff on plants and birds, and waterbuffalo! Having been licked to death by the latter we carried on our journey. Some feint cries above us were identified as being from the Marsh Harrier. I knew little about this bird, but soon learned that they have mating flights very high in the sky - often above the cloud base. Well impressed! Back home I learned they are pretty rare - only 150 breeding females in the country?
