Geri Skeens - Moorland Guide

09/11/2026

Roles like this don't come around often... please do share with the most brilliant, experienced, peatland champion you know!

SWPP Restoration Manager: A role leading on delivery of ambitious, holistic, large-scale hydrological peatland restoration work across the UK’s South West.

Office: Okehampton, with travel across Exmoor, Dartmoor and Cornwall
Closing date: 22 November
Salary: £40,000 - £50,000/year

Learn more: https://careers.southwestwater.co.uk/jobs/8614051-south-west-peatland-partnership-restoration-manager

09/11/2026

09/11/2026

08/11/2026

This little pony wouldn't leave me alone; had to take myself off to eat my lunch elsewhere! Visit Dartmoor

06/11/2026

Join us for a gentle stroll with DPA Ecologist Albert Knott considering the winter management of trees and hedges, plus some winter twig ID.

This exploration starts at Cold East Cross Car Park. We will then share transport to Pudsham Meadows, where we will look at hedges and woodland trees, discussing their winter value and management.

Distance: 1 mile
Start time: 10:00am
Estimated finish time: 12:00
Meet: Cold East Cross Car Park
No dogs please

Please contact Albert to book your place: [email protected]

02/11/2026

Woolly Fringe-moss (Racomitrium lanuginosum) is common in the uplands, often forming big mats on the ground, on boulders and along the tops of walls. Whitish when dryish; greener when wet - both seen in the big clump in the photo. With a magnifier, you can see the very long white tip to the leaf, like a scribble, which gives it its woolly appearance. There are spore cases in the close-up too.

01/11/2026

Just perfect on the moors today

31/10/2026

The front line for two lichens slowly fighting for space on a rock Visit Dartmoor

30/10/2026

Ferreting for filmy ferns at Sharpitor with Dartmoor Preservation Association ecologist, photographer and artist in residence. 'It's like a whole little universe!' said the artist as we encouraged her to invert herself in a promising crevice. The most exciting find here was the uncommon Tunbridge Filmy Fern which ekes out an existence in damp shady holes between boulders on the north side of the tor. Its fronds are so delicate they are translucent and the whole fern is only a couple of centimetres long. I took a few quick shots once the photographer had finished; his photos will be far better than mine. Visit Dartmoor

28/10/2026

Russell Retallick, fifth generation farmer at Bagtor Farm, took us on an information-packed walk from the common land, where he grazes his cattle, past his newtake, where his cattle spend August with a bull, down to his inbye fields where he grows hay for their winter feed. Thank you so much for helping us understand hill farming on Dartmoor.