With a gleeful rub of my hands and some small amount of self satisfaction at getting away from my desk, I recently met up with our Ranger team in Loweswater. They were spending the day identifying plant species for a better understanding of the significance of conservation and land management in our meadows and peatland - or as I like to call it ‘meeting Flora and Peat’.
Notebook and pen - tick
Sandwiches - tick
Camera - tick
Welly boots, er, no...waterproof trousers, um...midge repellent, ah.
Ready? Sort of.
If I thought I was going to spend the day simply wafting about in meadows looking at flowers in some floaty fuzzy-focus fashion I was a bit wide of the mark - this is a serious business you know!
Meadows and moss
Our day was split into two halves: in the morning we were looking at the hay meadows around the lakeshore and in the afternoon we were heading up onto Whiteoak Moss, in both locations learning about how land management and grazing regimes affect the diversity and health of the flora that’s present.