Two hundred and Fifty not out

Monday 12th March a school visited Cuerden Valley Park for river studies. We had two groups in the morning and another two in the afternoon. The afternoon groups were privileged to see a roe deer in the field next to the main path to the river. Kick sampling discovered Water mites, lots of cased caddisfly larvae, mayfly nymphs, a bullhead, lots of blood worms. I saw a new water beetle and cowslip out for the first time.

On Thursday March 15 I travelled to Southall for the regular 6 monthly A Rocha UK staff meeting at Minet Country Park. I went for a paper at 0700 and as I did I saw a ring necked parakeet flying over a London Plane tree. Lots of the local inhabitants were looking at me obviously wondering " Why is this man walking around in a short sleeved shirt when it is so cold?" One of the other teams took a walk round Minet later in the day and saw sweet violet. I shall have to search for it near Leighton Moss

On Sunday18th March I was helping on a walk in Cuerden Valley Park. We were looking at the geology and learning how the valley had been formed. A wonderful sunny day meant that the celandine, coltsfoot and daffodils were really showing off. I did notice some butterbur out for the first time as we passed over the wooden bridge. This was the only addition to my challenge list

The rest of the week was mainly delivering our Victorian Experience to schools from the local area. It did mean I was able to add bank vole bombus terrestris and dove's foot cranesbill as my list got to 251. 

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