Doing and Observing

After a busy weekend at the reserve our weekend managers, Sandra and Leanne, carried out the various checks on the mink rafts, dams, ensuring the hides are in good order etc., the ringing team were bird ringing and I replaced an owl box on the training area.

We hit Monday running. The usual office jobs, emails to answer, bookings for school visits and events, as well as trying to identify an unusual fruiting body on a rotting Silver Birch log pile.

After a bit of research we ascertained that the fungi looking bead-like growths were a form of slime mould. Each 'bead' was about 1mm in diameter. We have a number of fascinating, curious slime moulds frequenting the reserve, but I have never seen this variety before. We think we have narrowed it down to the genus Trichia. We found this interesting article on these complicated organisms: http://cronodon.com/BioTech/Plasmodium_SM.html

In the afternoon we were out and about again moving more logs from Risedale Beck bank.

As you can see from the photos below our first Primroses are flowering!

Nearby was this Barren Strawberry which had just begun to flower. This is very similar to the Wild Strawberry but differences include notably earlier flowering, more rounded leaves and a slightly different flower.