2024-09-06 10:29:48
Sasha Engelmann
Hackney Downs, London, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
NOAA-19
For the second day, the weather is damp, grey and dark, with intermittent rain. The park was wet and puddled, but plenty of people were out walking, having coffee and running with dogs. I breifly cuddled with Moonpie as Dave arrived at the park: 'you're one of the only people he runs up to like that, and also lets pet him' Dave said. By the time that sentence was finished, Moonpie was off again, racing to the other corner of the park. I collected some specimens - a leaf of clover, common yarrow and a tiny bump of moss found on the damp brick of the wall outside the house - to explore with the microscope. The 'weather worlds' of these small plants came alive under the lens - the moss danced with long whitish filaments that I learned could be sporophytes, and its stems and leaves bristled below. The yarrow was difficult to bring into focus because of its three dimensionality, but slowly the tips of leaves came into view, and I saw that it was covered in micro droplets. The stem of the clover almost shimmered, and I wondered if this was water coursing within the tissue, or just a quality of the surface.