Grasslands:
On the 23rd of August, the children of the UWNR conservation award group had a session on Grasslands.
We watched a video about grasslands and found out that … The two main types of grassland are Temperate and Tropical/Savana. Temperate grasslands have 4 seasons and are further away from the equator and there are few shrubs and trees because there is precipitation. The rainfall determines what grasses dominate. Tropical grasslands have only 2 seasons; Dry and Wet. They have shrubs and trees because their roots are deeper. In north America they have short grass prairies and long grass prairies.
Then we went to the barn owl meadow to collect grasses and then identify the species back in the barn with our Common grasses WildID booklets.
We identified them with these key features and their categories as you can see in the photo.
List of grasses we identified:
1.Bearded couch
2.Cocks foot
3.False oat grass
4.Tufted hair grass
5.Wood meadow grass
6.Common bent
7.Meadow fox tail
8.Sweet vernal grass
9.Creeping soft grass
10.Creeping bent
11.Yellow oat grass
12.Ragwort
13.Dock
14.Wild carrot
15.Vetch
16.Spotted ladies thumb
Semi natural!? – We think we may have a semi-natural grassland!
Semi-natural grasslands support rich communities of pollinators, invertebrates, birds, and mammals.
Crickets!
As well as many grasses we also found lots of little crickets.
Also - on a walk around the land we went to visit a slightly agitated wasp nest in a hole in the ground that had been disturbed by a badger seeking the larvae. We also checked our beaver dam which looked pretty dry because there hadn’t been rain for a while.
Well done to Clarke who made this amazing poster on sparrowhawks!