Wimbledon Common Nature Club
Sunday 2nd February 2025
The Wimbledon Common Nature Club is run by Auriel Glanville, with helpers including Jennifer Long, Luciana Teuma and Oliver Mallett. The Club welcomes children from 6–14 years old to come and discover the world of nature on Wimbledon Common. They meet for 2 hours each month in the Information Centre, the same venue as used by Quekett members on excursions, the Weekend of Nature and the Open Day.
As part of the Quekett’s outreach programme, Joan Bingley and Alan Wood took some stereo microscopes and some interesting slides and specimens to show the children at the annual “Life Under a Microscope” meeting. As usual, some of the parents were keen to have a look too.
When everyone had arrived, Auriel led us on a walk through the grassland and woodland so that the children could collect specimens to take back to the Centre. Their specimens included lichens, mosses, a holly leaf and bramble stem.
Collecting lichen on the Common
Sampling branches for lichens and mosses [by Auriel Glanville]
Alan Wood brought his Olympus SZ4045 zoom stereomicroscope with an LED ring-light, and a small Chinese stereomicroscope with a built-in top light. His specimens included grey and yellow lichens, feathers of a jay, a parakeet and a duck, and shell sand. He also brought microscope slides of various specimens.
Alan’s stereo microscopes
Joan Bingley brought a small stereomicroscope with built-in lighting from Brunel Microscopes, and an old Orion S240 stereomicroscope with a torch for illumination. She brought some large feathers, some shell sand, some postage stamps and a £1 coin, and she collected some moss when she walked from the car park.
Joan Bingley
Joan Bingley and Luci Teuma [by Auriel Glanville]
Joan’s stereo microscopes
Examining specimens and slides
Green lichen on an oak twig
Yellow and grey lichens on twig
Feathers of a jay and a ring-necked parakeet
Feather of a ring-necked parakeet
Shell sand from Harlyn Bay in Cornwall
Holly leaf spines
Bramble thorns
Micro writing on £1 coin (letters are 0.25 mm tall)
Location of micro writing on £1 coin
Microscope slides
Section through head of young Angel Fish
Pollen basket on third leg of a worker honeybee
European chicken flea (Ceratophyllus gallinae) (2.6 mm)
Stained section of ovary of daffodil
Microscope slides
Sixteen Mediterranean forams arranged on a 5×5 mm grid
Newborn mouse, T.S. region of kidney
Human hair
Mosquito larva (Culex sp.)
Fig T.S. stem
One of the parents kindly took a group photograph for us:
Group photo
Report and most photographs by Alan Wood