BORDER BRYOLOGISTS

22nd
October

Elan Valley, Radnorshire
Meet at Elan Visitor Centre (SN 9289647). We will visit Cnwch and Cwm yr Escob woods above the village, and wood-pasture at Cae Melyn.

This joint meeting with Biodiversity Information Services and Celtic Rainforest is part of the British Bryological Society’s centenary celebration and is especially for people who are just starting to look at mosses and liverworts.

12th
November

was to have been Glazeley, now Eardington Nature Reserve
There will be a Remembrance Sunday service in the church at Glazeley on Sunday; it is likely to be well attended and the car park full, so the meeting will visit Eardington Nature Reserve.

Meet at Eardington Nature Reserve, a few miles east of Glazeley, at 10.30 a.m. in the car park by the B4555 at the entrance to the reserve (SO 724900).

The nature reserve is a disused sand-pit, which Mark Lawley visited in 2006 when it was still working, and found Tortula (Syntrichia) amplexa, (second British record), along with Ephemerum recurvifolium and Weissia longifolia var. longifolia. It will be interesting to see if any of these species have survived the disuse of the pit, and which species have arrived since 2006.

14th
January

Wapley Hill
We will explore Wapley Hill in north-west Herefordshire. Forestry tracks can be very bryologically rewarding, with varying dampness and often some base-enrichment from imported hardcore. There is also a disused quarry to explore. Meet in the forestry car park at SO 359622.

11th
February

Kidderminster
This is a joint meeting with the Worcestershire Moss Group, and we look forward to finding 'carpets of moss' in Kidderminster, although no bryophytes have yet been recorded there. We will follow a circular route round part of the town, examining the banks of the River Stour and the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal, walls and gravestones at St. Mary and All Saints' Church, secondary woodland and the margins of Puxton Marsh.

Park and meet at the northern end of Puxton Lane (follow road-side advertising sign that says This Way to Bond Worth fine carpets and flooring). Park in large open area at the road-end alongside the Bond Worth warehouse, Townshend Works, Puxton Lane, Kidderminster DY11 5DF (Grid Ref: SO 82474 77209).

There are toilet and refreshment facilities at Sainsbury’s supermarket (about halfway around our circuit).

10th
March

Meifod
Meet in the car park at Meifod (SJ 153133), Montgomeryshire, from where we will explore the churchyard, the bank of the River Vyrnwy, and any unploughed arable fields.