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Spotting bugs

Writer's picture: CroneCrone

During the week of cutting sycamores, I was reunited with some of the volunteers I used to hang out with before I took on the VO role and with one of the other Reserve Officers.


He’s a great inspiration because he’s so infinitely curious. It was he who showed me an app to help identify fungi and inspired me to look beyond trees and critters. Ian has his own little patch of woodland, he used to turn wood – making bowls and platters – and he takes home a selection of leaves with stuff growing on them to examine under his microscopes.


I loved that I could watch him peering with fascination at a leaf before tucking it into a test tube. He’d say, ‘There are two black spots on that one.’ He has better eyesight than I do. He also recommended a book - Secrets of the Soil (which was delivered today - a hefty tome - along with a book about identifying earthworms).


All this has encouraged me to collect – at some point – some soil from the quadrats and take them round to Tim’s to look at under a microscope. And maybe to get a cheap one for my Christmas present from my Dad....


CC has given me a great deal of information on collecting springtails; a teacher volunteering one day suggested a moisture probe; I want to check again for worms now it has rained.


All this will demand time.


My commitment to myself is that after Qatar I will make sure that I have 1.5 days of free time a fortnight. Time to explore, to be curious, to peer at things, to borrow a microscope, to stand and stare, to listen.

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