At the weekend 11-12 June I taught at Blencathra, a Field Studies Council Centre. The two day course was "Grasses, Sedge and Rushes".
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| At an old stone quarry on the slopes of Blencathra, above Blencathra Field Centre. Lunch stop with splendid views |
In the acid grassland here we found nine species of grass and three rushes/woodrushes.
Although the course was advertised as two "non-residential days", I stayed at Blencathra Field Centre itself as did several other participants. I arrived early at the centre on the Friday evening ready to teach the course which started on the Saturday morning. There was a group of geography school students (16 year olds) That evening, the geography teacher asked, with a bemused expression
"Why do people come and study grasses?"
"Because grasses are so interesting.. and important!" I said.
"All the ancient civilizations started off in places where there were wild grass species with big seeds - which gave people enough time to settle down and develop civilizations. China had rice, South America had maize, the Middle East had wheat and barley"
"Please do tell your students that as soon as they are 18 they are welcome to come on such courses".
I had 16 adults in my group. Several people work for environment organisations or as environment consultants. Some hope to do survey work. Two were students. Three worked for Cumbria Wildlife Trust. One man had a small farm that on which he was starting to practise regenerative farming. At least two people were there as a hobby as they like plants.
On the first day we learned about the structure and terminology for describing grasses in the morning, then walked up to this spot for lunch to look for some grasses on the mountain side.
See more tomorrow.
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