The Ambleside Natural History Society meets in a spirit of friendship and goodwill to share in all aspects of natural history, geology, the countryside, its scenery, its flora and fauna, its use, its buildings, its history, the activities of its inhabitants, etc. Almost nothing is excluded.
Non-members are welcome to attend our meetings at a charge of £3.
Next Meeting
Thursday 17 October at 7:30 pm
Percival Lecture Theatre, University of Cumbria
Biodiversity monitoring at Cumbria Connect: what, where, and why?
Mo Verhoeven (Cumbria Connect)
Cumbria Connect is an ambitious project restoring 33,000 ha of upland landscape in North-West England through large-scale tree planting, natural regeneration, peatland restoration and re-establishment of historic river systems. Mo will describe how and why they are monitoring nature’s restoration.
Summer 2024 field trips
16 June – Moth identification at Holehird Gardens
Several moth traps were set in different parts of the garden the night before and we checked them together in the morning with the help of moth expert Guy Broom who helped us identify the different moths we had caught.
Images of moths we observed can be found at this link.
Thanks to Steven Mees and the Lakeland Horticultural Society for letting us use the Holehird site
4 May – Walk in Skelghyll Woods
On a damp Saturday morning in early May around a dozen ANHS members walked the route of the 1966 Skelghyll Wood Nature Trail, designed by Ambleside Field Society. We saw lots of bluebells and ramsons; heard cuckoos and a variety of warblers; found a charcoal burning platform and toothwort (the subject of one of Harold Auty’s lovely woodcuts in the original leaflet) and looked at lichens such as Gyalecta jenensis in the old limestone quarry. In general, there are more, bigger trees than in the 1960s, and fewer wildflowers to be seen. Many of the more exotic trees have gone, however. There’s a lot more beech and holly. An interesting time was had by all: we’ll do more local walks in the future.
A guide to travel to Ambleside Campus can be found at this link with a campus map in the section on cycling.
The Percival Lecture Theatre is in the Langdale Building, number 5 on the map.
The alternative venue is the Beehive, building number 2 on the map.
If you turn in at The Armitt Museum, park in the car parks at the bottom of the hill (free in the evenings) then walk up the hill. The Beehive is the single storey building on your right, the Langdale Building is slightly further, up the steps to the flat area and is again on your right.
The committee always welcomes suggestions for future talks; if you have suggestions for talks, comments on what we are doing or if you want to become a member email us at ambleside.nhs@gmail.com.
Our programmes for previous years are available at the heading tab.
Swifts in Ambleside
Following a talk on swifts to ANHS by Peter Moreton in April 2019, Pete Martin set up a small group to monitor swifts and their nest sites in Ambleside each summer.
Click on the links to read Pete’s reports of their observations.