Migrating South

After another summer at Foxglove, the autumn is upon us and the time has come for me to head South back to the Antarctic for the winter. Yesterday and today have involved lots of eating cake and lots of farewells and good wishes. I have had another enjoyable summer at Foxglove, and will no doubt see many of you again before I go or in the Springtime. Thank you all for welcoming me back in the spring and working with me through the summer. At lunchtime yesterday, I concluded my summer with a presentation on penguins and my work in Antarctica (apologies for the slightly fuzzy picture, it was rather dark).

This morning we led a walk around the reserve for the Richmond Walking and Book Festival. This was very enjoyable as we walked right round the reserve, covering a lot more ground than in a usual guided walk.

It was also a good chance to check that no trees had fallen down in the recent strong winds, which luckily they had not. We found more nice fungi whilst in the woodland, including this Oyster mushroom.

After lunch, we headed out onto the wetland to check for one of our rare ferns, a tiny little plant called Pillwort.

We were pleased to find this was not only growing well but was in actual fact spreading to new areas.