A walk around Gosling Moor, an historic wood pasture, with some ancient and veteran trees, mainly looking at the trees themselves and the invertebrates they supported.
With a person at each corner, we held a sheet under various species of tree and gave a branch a shake.
We counted the species of invertebrates that fell into the sheet.
Oak had most as expected with Rowan not far behind.
Comment from Howard:
I really enjoyed the visit to Gosling Moor, led by Catherine. It was a lovely place and a new one to me with many fine old trees and unimproved grassland (though closely cropped by sheep).
What really pleased me was Catherine’s putting each creature back on the foliage that it came from.Other groups that I know often kill the invertebrates to identify later and this really puts me off going with them. I was really impressed by Catherine’s love and respect for the creatures that we found. Howard