About the event

Walking through a sea of wildflowers can be an amazing experience. Why not enhance that enjoyment by learning how to identify each of the posies you see along the way?

You will spend the day with our SWT Ecology Services Ecologist, Isobel Girvan. She will start with a classroom session teaching you how to use various wildflower guides and their identification techniques. You will then walk across the road and venture into the diverse chalk grassland habitat of Headley Warren to test your newly gained knowledge.  You'll bring your lunch and picnic surrounded by the beauty of this wildflower meadow.

This is the perfect day for newcomers just learning how to identify plants as well as those looking to further develop their wildflower knowledge.

Please be prepared for a fair amount of gentle walking, including up and down mild slopes and one rather steep one. There are also some lengthy periods of standing.

Tutor - Isobel Girvan

My name is Isobel Girvan and I have been working as an ecologist for over twenty years now and I still love it. There is always more to see, find out and learn about. I started off by completing my Geographical and Environmental degree at Roehampton Institute, after which I spent just over a year with the Somerset Environmental Records Centre. This began my passion for botanical surveying and identifying.

My current role is of Principal Ecologist at SWT Ecology Services. The work is varied from advising home owners about planning applications to supplying botanical species lists for local conservation volunteer groups to providing habitat management plans to local authorities.

I am a self-confessed geek, during the summer months I love nothing more than going out with local groups at weekends on botanical field meetings. Not only can I sometimes help to identify plants, but also learn new id points, whilst also picking up on the latest gossip and seeing beautiful places in Surrey and Hampshire. Come the winter months I then swop over to looking at mosses and liverworts, but this is an on-going project as I still regard myself as a novice.

I also have a family to look after, plenty of historical novels to read and box-sets to catch up on. I look forward to meeting you.