Comments for BioBlitz Bristol

Comment on Upcoming Bristol BioBlitz 2013 at Kingsweston by DavidB

DavidB — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:24:12 +0000

beginning to get our gear togeather…

Comment on Upcoming Bristol BioBlitz 2013 at Kingsweston by Upcoming Bristol BioBlitz 2013 at Kingsweston | BioBlitz UK

Upcoming Bristol BioBlitz 2013 at Kingsweston | BioBlitz UK — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:18:27 +0000

[...] Upcoming Bristol BioBlitz 2013 at Kingsweston. [...]

Comment on Blogging about a Wild Winter by bioblitzuk

bioblitzuk — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:26:54 +0000

Close, Trudy, but no cigar! – It’s a Redwing – another species of winter thrush closely related to the Fieldfare. Both come to the UK from Scandanavia an other colder climes to gorge on our autumn berries.

Comment on Blogging about a Wild Winter by Trudy Connor

Trudy Connor — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:43:15 +0000

I think this is a fieldfare

Comment on Blogging about a Wild Winter by Jo Ann

Jo Ann — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:13:10 +0000

I like your winter DIY projects for the birds. Think I’ll try the suet recipe. We go through a lot of suet cakes every winter.

Comment on Give your garden wildlife a gift this Christmas – Make your own bird cakes! by david b

david b — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:04:56 +0000

Making fatballs with kids is great fun. But if you do buy ready made remember to buy the net free versions. As legs can get trappped in the nets.

Comment on A glorious day at the Bristol BioBlitz by bristolstorage

bristolstorage — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 09:29:53 +0000

Looks like you had the perfect day for it!

Comment on It’s the final countdown… by bristolstorage

bristolstorage — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 09:28:44 +0000

Fantastic work guys congrats! Hopefully you’ll uncover even more next time round!

Comment on Fern or bracken? It’s all in the pinnate. by Martin Rand

Martin Rand — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 05:20:49 +0000

Well, sorry to be a grump, but there’s rather a lot that’s, er, not quite right about Simon’s original posting.
1. You can’t talk about telling Bracken from ferns. Bracken _is_ a fern – in fact, the boss fern, occurring in more parts of the world than any other. That’s not just pedantry, as we’ll see shortly.
2. “Pinnate” is an adjective that says that a leaf or blade is divided down into separate segments. You can’t talk about “a pinnate”. If you go to a flora or field guide to help you out on this, it won’t mention “pinnates” – the usual terms are “frond” or “blade” for fern leaves.
3. Yes, Bracken is 3-pinnate (its leaves divide down three times). Unfortunately, you can’t tell that from the posting, as the photo doesn’t show the whole frond and you can’t see the first division. No wonder Janet was struggling.
4. According to species and sometimes even varying a bit within species, other ferns can have leaves that are entire (completely undivided); lobed but not pinnate; 1-pinnate; 2-pinnate; 3-pinnate; or 4-pinnate. A very common example of a 3-pinnate fern that isn’t Bracken, found pretty well all over Britain, is Broad Buckler-fern.(Actually, the last division of the leaves is often only part-way to the base, in Bracken or in other ferns, Books sometimes refer to this as “2-3″ or even “2 1/2″ pinnate, or whatever times and a half it is.)

So, how _do_ you tell Bracken from other ferns you might come across?
1. Its fronds come up singly, not in tufts or “shuttlecocks” like many other ferns.
2. It’s 3-pinnate (yes, that certainly does narrow the field down a lot).
3. Take a mature leaf and look at the underside. That’s where, on most ferns, the spores are The spores are the things which, after a complicated life-cycle, eventually give rise to baby ferns. They are massed together in clumps or lines, in some species with a membranous lid or flap covering them. The patterns these form are often distinctive. In the case of Bracken, the spores occur in a continuous line around the edge of each leaf-segment, and are covered by a continuous flap formed partly by a very narrow membrane and partly by the edge of the leaflet being rolled over. If you’re unlucky and get a frond that’s not sporing, the rolled-over edge is still there (as long as the frond isn’t very young).

In answer to Fred’s question, the stem of Bracken is actually pretty robust compared with many other ferns.The other fern illustrated is either Male Fern or a Golden-scaled Male Fern. These can have stems that are either more or less robust than Bracken – one species of Golden-scaled is certainly very chunky.

- Martin Rand
BSBI Recorder, South Hampshire

Comment on Fern or bracken? It’s all in the pinnate. by Janet Dorey

Janet Dorey — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 14:06:56 +0000

Nope, sorry, I’m not seeing it. Got another example?