Winter Tree ID

Today was my third course in less than a week.

On Thursday I attended a Workday Leader course, which was concerned with best practices when running a volunteer task day. We covered off what you should say to do with the group, and in the afternoon had a 'tool talk' looking at the various equipment and how to use it appropriately and safely.

This morning I returned to the nature reserve for a bit of self development on species identification. The aptly named Winter Tree ID course was just what you would imagine.  We wandered around for about two hours, looking at the various trees on site and their features.

In all, we identified 19 different species. I made copious notes and took numerous photographs, so hopefully now I will be able to tell apart all those trees with oval leaves that have confused me in the past.

Being autumn, most of the leaves are now on the ground so it was especially good to look for other features like bark, buds and catkins to help with identification.