High Pike - Whiteworm lichen monitoring

It was beautiful this morning with a good forecast, so a much overdue visit to High Pike was made. I've been meaning, for ages, to try and set up some basic monitoring system for the rare Thamnolia Vermicularis lichen. Given its distribution as an upland species I would expect it to be declining at this site, but I am pretty sure it has increased its cover over the past 25 years that I have been visiting it. This is backed up by a couple of comments from friends that have made the same observation - anectdotal evidence - not exactly scientific! So on Monday I set about trying to take some photographs that I shall be able to re-take maybe twice a year to try and monitor the health of the population. 

Photographs were taken in the four quadrants around a marked rock that I have a 10 figure grid reference for and photographs that show the position of that rock. I did try marking using a nail but given that I couldn't find the nail head five minutes after I had placed it I went for a simple dot of paint on a buried rock!

So a few general and nice photos followed by boring ones that I will use, hopefully, in monitoring. ...and having just looked at the photos now...the light was so bright and the grass surrounding the Thamnolia so you can barely tell the difference! I've reduced the level of brightness of the photograph which helps a little ..I think I am going to have to go back with a print out of my photos and mark on them the limit of the main patches and also re-photo the shots in a dull light! ...Nothing is ever as easy as it seems! 

Looking across to Carrock Fell.

Across the saddle between Carrock and High Pike towards Bannerdale Crags. 

Chasing a Raven (top left). 

Thamnolia in amongst grass ...hard to see! 

Closer up ...

The main area ...lots of different areas of Thamnolia.

...and some monitoring shots for the first stone .....the tape measure is a metre in length and aligned North -South. 

South East Quadrant

Norht East Quadrant. 

North West Quadrant. 

South West Quadrant. 

I then repeated this for another three sites within the main area which I won't bother putting on here as they don't look a lot different!