Last weekend my sister and I got out in the drizzle to a woodland in Somerset. We were out looking for snails. Yes, we do this for fun in our spare time.
And we found many snails and their empty shells. Specifically, lots of Copse snail shells (Arianta arbustorum) and many live Door snails of some sort or other (very tall and pointy) climbing up and down the tree trunks. If you haven't started your collection yet, but you want to collect lots of different species and get a good mark - I think snails is a good choice.
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| Speckly shelled Copse snail CC image by Kristian Pikner |
We also saw a lot of mosses and liverworts. I love mosses and liverworts (I might have mentioned this before). The keys are not easy. It's going to hurt your head a bit more than snails. But if you like staring down a microscope at the interesting and varied shapes of leaves, all bright green and lovely - then consider giving mosses a go. They're certainly easy enough to find, so you won't have to worry about having enough species to submit.
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| Plagiomnium undulatum. Reminiscent of miniature seaweed. In a wood. CC Bernd Haynold. |
Another thing we saw much of was lichen. There were some excellent examples of Graphis scripta. It's supposed to look like writing. Presumably writing etched by tiny little tree elves or something. Lichen is around all year and it doesn't run away from you. If you fancy getting into something a bit weird, lichen could be for you.
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| Graphis scripta with its long 'lirellate' fruiting bodies. CC Ed Uebel. |
There were also trees in the wood of course, and a rather unusual cross between pollarding and coppicing that produced so-called Stoggles. If you're collecting twigs, then if you find yourself in such a habitat, it'd be worth sketching and writing about in your notebook. I'm expecting delivery soon of a new winter twigs book by Bernd Schulz. It's supposed to be released in April so perhaps it'll even arrive before your hand-in date.
This may not be the world's most inspiring post. But the turn of the year is a sign that I will be getting back outside and recollecting my sanity, and that you now have the opportunity to get out there and practise your naturalist / taxonomic collector's skills. There's still time for you to produce something really good. Try to make it as good as you can and you will get a good mark (plus the satisfaction of learning something interesting). Onward and upward.
