Venture Travel Magazine

Here is my interview with Venture Travel Magazine -

http://www.venturetravelmag.com/blog/wildlife-challenge

A nice Suprise

The fish on my list are very hard to see so I was very happy when my uncle turned up at the house with this -

Its a fish from my list!! My uncle found it dead on the beach and dropped it round the house for me to see, lucky it was still fresh so it was not smelly!

Plaice (Pleuronectes platessa)
Is a flat fish found in the sea (you might also find some unlucky ones in the fish and chip shop!).

It is a common flatfish, occurring on the sandy and muddy bottoms of the European shelf, usually at depths between 10 and 50 m, where they tend to burrow in sediment during day time and remain stationary for long periods. They can be found at depths up to approximately 200 m. Young fish in particular come right inshore in very shallow water. They are able to survive low salt concentrations and may occur in some cases in brackish water or even in freshwater. The European plaice is characterised above by their darkgreen to darkbrown skin, blotched with conspicuous, but irregularly distributed, orange spots. The underside is pearly white. The skin is smooth with small scales. They are able to adapt their colour somewhat to match that of their surroundings but the orange spots always remain visible

Its been a while.....

Its been a while since I have updated my blog but I have been really busy with my conservation work. So here is a summary of what I have been up to -

We have been busy at Parc Slip nature reserve (http://parcslipnr.blogspot.co.uk/) clearing ditches and sowing wildflower mixes.  And riding around on the resident giant Brian the Badger

 

I have made an appearance in the international Venture Travel Magazine who interviewed me about my challenge.

 

I won the South East Wales Biodiversity Records Centre (SEWBREC) (http://www.sewbrec.org.uk/) young wildlife recorder of the year which include gift vouchers for the NHBS website (I still haven't decided what to spend them on).

 

 

 

I have joined the Glamorgan Fungus Group and this year will be recording all my fungi finds at my local nature reserve with the help of my dad (currently 24 species). I'm not the only one at the reserve who likes fungi, you can see Door snails snacking on jelly ears in the photo above.

 

 

 

I have been busy enjoying the signs of Spring after a long winter.

 

And coppicing with Butterfly Conservation to help the High Brown Fritillary at its last known site in Wales.

 

 

 

Throughout March I have been out with my local amphibian and reptile group helping toads across the roads to their breeding sites. And some frogs as well (see below)

 

 

 

 

 

It hasn't all been hard work I have had chance to try out my new Trangia Camp stove that I had for Christmas. It cooks my favourite Chicken Tikka Massala well.

 

 

 

And took some time out to snooze in a tree.

 

 

I was interviewed by ITV Wales Coast & Country about my challenge and signs of spring (Series 2 Episode 2).

 

And I have been interviewed by The Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales for their podcast -   http://youtu.be/y-2J_yG9tbk

 

 

Enough of all that, on with the challenge!

 

 

 

I stumbled across this Spindle tree in my local woods which is another tick off my list.

 

Spindle (Euonymus europaeus)

 The Spindle gets its name from the fact that it was used for hand spinning wool before the spinning wheel was invented. Its other names of "prickwood" "skewerwood" and "pincushion shrub" give you a clue that wood from this bush was also used for skewers, toothpicks, pegs and knitting needles. The tree has bright pink berries which were once dried and powdered and rubbed into children's hair as a cure for headlice.