Viper's bugloss
Many years ago, I did a week-long 'Science and Practice of Nature Conservation' course, in Dorset (a county on the south coast of England); it was pretty much a taster course given the wide range of disciplines involved. We learned a lot in a very short space of time, and quite apart from quadrat surveys and identifying flora from keys, my 'stay-with-me' memories from it include seeing and hearing my first nightjars, using a bat detector, seeing and hearing my first Dartford warbler, seeing my first eyebright, tormentil and sundews, and visiting the Isle of Portland. The latter would come to be more important to me some time afterwards - I decided to do a degree to further my conservation career, and became fascinated by Earth sciences (rather than life sciences) during my foundation year, and I have seen a lot of Portland Stone since then. I've never lost my interest in plants, though. We were just walking the short distance from the minibus to a quarry there whe