Wednesday 21 December 2016

The shortest day ....

Here we are on the winter solstice - I can feel the day(s) getting longer already. It's been a busy year for lasering stuff, and next year looks even more so. Which is of course a good thing. Meanwhile, Phil's been busy summarising some of the adventures we've had, from Ghana to Gabon, Manaus to Morpeth (well, Harwood), Wytham to ... well, woods far and wide. His post for the NCEO blog is an excellent summary of our activities. Phil has also written a blog guide to airborne lidar for the BES journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution, where Kim's Eucalypt biomass paper is still getting lots of attention - 58 citations so far, and a nice little feature on the BBC Science page after the 2016 BES meeting in Liverpool.

So... next year - Borneo, Brazil, deepest darkest Peru, California for some of these (*very* excited about that!)
A giant redwood: image Michael Nichols, from https://roadtrippers.com/stories/jaw-dropping-photographs-of-californias-giant-redwoods
 Closer to home, we'll be working on some London-based tree mapping and modelling. Including this rather striking Hardy Ash, so-called because the odd skirting of gravestones were added by a young Thomas Hardy during railway works in the 1860s (where he earned his living long before he became a writer). The tree is tucked away in one of London's many, many little hidden gems, St Pancras Old Church, apparently one of the oldest Christian places of worship in England (may be 7th century). And incidentally with several other literary connections, including featuring in A Tale of Two Cities, one of my all-time favourite books. Camden Council are interested in measuring the tree and getting a view on how to best preserve it. Which is where we come in for our first work of 2017. From the old to the new.