Yesterday afternoon when I arrived at Charnwood Lodge, it was looking decidedly dodgy on the weather front. We'd had constant rain on Saturday so it was always going to be wet underfoot, and there was light drizzle when I left home so I expected to get properly wet.
As it happened, I ended up having a nice long walk across the moorland, around the small Colony Reservoir and around the base of Timberland Hill with no rain at all.
As I wondered around these areas I collected leaves, bags of moss and poked my phone camera at a few fungi. I then
headed into the wooded area known as Gisborne's Gorse and almost like flicking a switch
the sun started to come out.
More leaves bagged, and I stopped around the old house where I found loads of
the Rhododendron Leafhoppers featured yesterday.
The stroll back to the car was very pleasant, and I was thankful that I'd left
a flask of hot coffee in the car. During the whole time wandering around I saw
one person - Margaret McLoughlin as she departed just as I arrived. I also
managed to avoid the free-roaming longhorn bovines which is always a bonus.
I've had a brief play with the microscope, squeezing some peaty water out from
mosses. I have no idea what I'm looking at - it really is another world. Sadly
I've not found anything that looks remotely like a Desmid as yet, but lots of
'testate' amoeba type things and possibly a 'naked' ameoba. Also some nematode
type things wiggling about and lots of even smaller round green blobs zipping
through the field of view. It is absolutely like looking back to the
beginnings of life. It is a start, I've got a lot of practice before anything
properly presentable comes out of it but here's a few early snaps and and
vid-clip ....
A testate ameoba
A tiny banana
Another testate ameoba
Perhaps a 'naked' ameoba?
Same beast as above, except slightly out of focus ....
2 comments:
THIS is the blogpost I've been most looking forward to reading, and you even bunged in an awesome bit of tunage too! Your naked amoeba is a rotifer - big clue being the equivalent to a set of jaws halfway down the 'neck', you can see them at work in your vid clip. Google trophi and mastax and you'll see what I mean. Nice work, look forward to seeing the desmids once you do find them!
PS I've only ever seen two CCCs, one in Fuerteventura and one on Scilly. Both were amongst big rocks, so you're definitely in the right habitat ;)
Ah, that makes sense. I’ll keep looking for Desmids, I’ll probably need to try some different areas and/or collecting techniques. it’s all good fun - watching rotifers in the swamp rather than the rotters from the swamp on the news.
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