OPAL Water Survey at Duke's Wood

Although it was quite an early start today, we were very much looking forward to catching up with HE friends that we have neglected over the school summer break, and also to taking part in another of the OPAL surveys. This was also to be our first visit to Dukes Wood, a Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust reserve, at the site of the UK's first oilfield.

The small museum was opened up specially for our group, and we were lucky to have one of the engineers that worked the site to answer any questions we had.

We then headed in to the woods in search of a pond...

Given the weather we had this summer, we were more than a little surprised to discover that the first pond had actually dried up! Fortunately, there was another, albeit a little muddy...

...and we discovered a rams horn snail, pond snail, leech, water beetles, waterlice, water shrimps and a common newt.

I was also fascinated to find out that this plant is angelica, that used to appear crystallized on desserts of the 1970s, very much a part of my childhood!

Whereas Madi preferred being in charge of the clipboard and recording our results...

...then submitting them to the OPAL website when we got home.