Wednesday 20 December 2017

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...

...8 Sphagna growing

 



Sphagnum mosses are a group of small but incredible plants, which have enabled metres of peat to build up on our blanket bogs over thousands of years. Sphagnum mosses are brilliant at retaining water, and also produce an anti-microbial chemical called 'sphagnan'. This means that dying plant material doesn't rot down and instead accumulates to form a dark black 'soil' - peat. Peat is a great store of carbon - so the historical loss of Sphagnum mosses from our South Pennine bogs is something Moors for the Future Partnership is working to reverse. Through Community Science, volunteers have been out surveying Sphagnum mosses and adding to 'The Big Moss Map'.

7 sites now set up,

 

 

 

6 leaves a-prickling,

 


 

5 red deer!

 


 

4 hare prints, 

 


3 lizards,

 

 

 

2 mating toads,

 


and a bilberry bumblebee!

 

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