Dedridge Environment Ecology Project | Dedridge Pond & Nature Trail

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Dedridge Pond and Nature Trail

The Nature Trail has provided a great educational focus for local schools' eco-group projects, nurseries, playgroups and families in the area. An Interpretation Panel (pictured below) has been located at the beginning of the Trail, outlining the 10 stations that are around the Dedridge Burn Plantation. Each station is marked with a number for easy identification. Parents can take their children around the Nature Trail and use the leaflets as a guide. Five leaflets are available for free from the nearby Lanthorn Community Complex within the library, giving extensive information on what can be seen at the stations.

Stations 1 & 2

Animals at these stations include black headed gulls, mute swans, mallard ducks and moorhens.

Stations 3 & 4

Beech trees are prominent in the canopy layer of the surrounding woodland and don't let much light through to the ground beneath, meaning that not many plants grow in their shadow. However the beech nuts are a major source of food for small mammals such as grey squirrels.

The ash trees in the woodland allow more light through so more plants grow and survive underneath them.

The shrub layer of the woodland consists of younger individuals of dominant trees and smaller shrubs that are all adapted to grow in low-light environments.

There is a hydrosere, which is an area by water which has been colonised by a number of different plants. At Dedridge Pond, this is referred to as the marshland, which is also an important stage in the hydrosere process.

Willow is one of the main colonisers of the hydrosere area. Flag iris is a major component of the pond vegetation, making up many of the areas the animals use to nest in. Hogweed is common in this area along with many other wildflowers such as meadow sweet, water forget-me-not and bog bean.

Meadowseet (Filipendula ulmaria)

Water Forget-me-not (Myosotis scorpioides)

Flag iris (Iris pseudacorus)

The frog seen most in and around the pond is the common frog (Rana temporaria) and during early Spring, frogspawn is abundant!

Stations 5 & 6

Many organisms live in and around the burn. As well as frogs, you can also find water snails, leeches, minnows, sticklebacks, newts, shrimps and waterlice. It is important to know what lives in the water because it can tell us about the quality of the water. For example, the presence of stoneflies and caddisflies indicate a high quality of water, while oligiochaeta (worms) indicate a lower quality.

Stonefly (Plecoptera)

Caddisfly larva (Trichoptera)

Water louse (Isopoda)

Beetle (Coleoptera)

Larva

Swans mussels were found in Dedridge Pond when it was drained to clear rubbish and this was an unexpected find. They are filter feeders which means that they feed on free-floating microorganisms.

Swan mussel (Anodonta cygnea)

Ferns are a frequent feature of the woodland. They reproduce by the production of spores (as seen in the photo below) on the underside of their leaves, rather than by seeds. The most common ferns at Dedridge Pond are the male fern (Dryopteris filix-mas) and the broad-buckler fern (Dryopteris dilatata) which is pictured below in the photos; firstly showing how ferns grow from curled 'fronds', then spore production in the early and later stages.

There are also mosses, liverworts and lichens. These also reproduce with spores and not seeds.

Stations 7 & 8

The trees seen in the woodland area are ash, beech, alder, birch, elder, elm, oak, scots pine, sycamore, rowan and willow. There are a number of features that distinguish each tree from the next however a good place to start is the leaves followed by the bark. In the Winter, it is possible to identify trees using the winter twigs.

Sycamore

Rowan

Birch

Holly

The dead tree trunk in which woodpeckers have been seen building nests.

Another fascinating feature of the woodland is the bracket fungi. This grows on the bark of trees. The proper name for these fruiting bodies is 'conks' and they reproduce rather like ferns, by producing spores.

The concept of annual rings to aid in the estimation of tree age is taught at station 7.

Stations 9 & 10

Oak trees are abundant in this area and support more species than any other tree in Britain. The acorn is another source of food for mammals and birds.

There are a vast number of flowering plants in the woodland. In the Summer common ones include the common spotted orchid (the flower of West Lothian as of 2004), white campion, ragged robin, hedge parsley, dog rose, daisy, thistle, bramble, buttercup and speedwell. These are vital in the composition of the herbaceous layer in the woodland.