We went on a trip with Jessica Mason from The Heritage Council. We put our boots on and headed out. We started at the hedgerow. There was a lot of whitethorn and occasional ivy. We learn that there are male ivy and female ivy. As we went down we saw a bit more variety. We saw a blackthorn down by the shed in the garden. So that was most of the hedgerow.
We then went around the garden and saw a few ash, oak and apple trees. We went down to the corner and there was an oak tree with loads going on. There was an oak tree with the best bit of an Old man’s beard which is a type of lichen sensitive to good air quality. There were also a lot of frilly lichens. She also told us that ash trees are very easy to identify because the buds\tips are black. We then went around the bottom of the field.
There wasn’t much down there except a few big ash trees. There were barely any lichens up by the road because lichens don’t like the habitat by the road as the air is not as good air in the corner because the cars on the road are making the air a lot worse. We could tell that the air quality down by the oak tree was a lot better up by the road because of the level of biodiversity.
Michael Twomey 6th Class
