September is over and when I look back I can only think about how many things I’ve learnt this month! Well, and the good weather I enjoyed during my holidays in Spain 🙂
Two more biodiversity workshops were hold in Stirling as part of the free training programme I’ve been organizing. Although I should have spoken to the weather man to know that the second workshop would end up with a not very pleasant rain, both workshops were very successful.
The invertebrates and surveying techniques workshop was led by Niall Currie (TCV Natural Talent Apprentice, Urban Biodiversity). We had an indoor session at Balallan House in which learning about the different techniques used when surveying was one of the most loved parts. The afternoon was absolutely fantastic, not only we found plenty of invertebrates in the pitfall traps that Niall had set up the day before but we also had the chance to do some pond dipping in Balallan’s garden. Water beetles, water boatmen, mayfly larvae and whirligig beetles were some of the beastes found.
Last week Suzanne Bairner (Project Officer Buglife) ran a beetles’ workshop at Balallan as well. It was amazing to learn beetles from ten different families and actually see some of them during the outdoor part of the day. Have a look at these pictures to see how participants had a great fun looking for beetles on the day.
My month end up fantastically well with a Fungi identification course organized by CSFT (Central Scotland Forest Trust) at Chatelherault Country Park. It was absolutely amazing to see some of the fungi found in Scotland. The “dead man’s fingers” and the “jelly ear” were my favourites of the day!
