Hi guys, long time no blog! Summer has been a really busy time for me all the invasive species work has been keeping me very busy. I’ve also been zooming all over the place picking up as many new skills as I can. So here’s a low down of what I’ve been doing…
Fun with fungi
September saw me travelling to Edinburgh to spend a few days with our fungi apprentice Nev and his mentor Roy learning all I could about invasive fungi and also basic fungi identification. It was a great few days. The first was spent at Dawyk Botanical gardens with Roy, Nev and John hunting for fungi and carrying out some survey work on their site. We managed to look at some non-native fungi on some of the gardens rhododendron species – they were very unexciting white blobs but at least I know what to look out for now! It was a great day with lots of fungi spotted and even a few for the dinner plate!
Yummy!!!
We spent the following day on a private site just down from Dawyk with some of the mycological society members scoping out a site for an up and coming foray that Nev was running. We saw loads of fungi at this site including a massive Porcini mushroom which unfortunately was past it’s best otherwise wit would have ended up as dinner for Jo and myself!
Dinner anyone?
We also had an insight into the magical world of faecal fungi courtesy of Mike Richardson who specialises in the subject. The mechanisms by which this group of fungi use to get to their chosen medium were pretty cool!
An Ink cap growing out of some sheep poo!
We finished off with day 3 being spent in the lab with Nev teaching me about microscopic i.d. of fungi. It was great to try to i.d my specimins although we had a few interesting outcomes……..if in doubt its an enteloma!
Prague Neobiota Conference September 2008
The end of september saw me jetting off to Prague for the Neobiota European Invasive Species Conference. It was held at the university and was spread over 4 days. It was a great opportunity to network with other invasive species biologists as well as learning about new species and also what research and work was being carried out across the globe.
I had a poster presentation up in the hall telling delegates all about my role as a NT apprentice; what I’d been doing and what I’ve learnt so far. It was great to plug the NT scheme and also get my face known amongst my peers.
From going to the conference I was invited to spend a few days at various labs across England to view invasive species research and herbariums to learn some more i.d. techniques. I’ve planned my trips for November and am looking forward to the experience.
Other training
As well as the 2 main training events above I have also attended a Project Leadership course at the CVNI offices here in Northern Ireland and attended a great little workshop on invasive species in the Mournes in Co.Down.
What about my day job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well you are probably wondering when I’ve had time to work what with all this galavanting! Well just to show you how hard I’m beavering away over here so here is a picture of me out spraying Japanese knotweed a few weeks ago……………….