Today I’ve been counting daisies on a much bigger landscape than a roundabout in Plymouth city centre. I, along with 50 or so fellow students, have been up Haytor on Dartmoor looking at the precariously balanced ecology of the area.

It’s an area where great changes have happened – 3,500 years ago or so, man deforested Dartmoor – chopping down trees in the name of progress isn’t by any means a new phenomenon. Since then it’s been used in various ways, including metals, minerals and china clay extraction, not to mention farming.

Despite our own (Bodmin) moor still being full of sheep and cows, there are apparently far fewer grazing animals across the high grounds of the UK. It seems there is a reduction of as much as 80% on the numbers pre-foot and mouth. This has an impact on the ecology of Dartmoor because the grazing animals would normally keep several invasive species under control.

Dartmoor is being bombarded from all sides – no grazing and so-called “leisure” use are all factors in changing the moor. The custodians of the moor have to work out what to protect and how to do it so that the character of the moor and its special breeding habitats are not diminished.

Just one day on the moor with an ecologist’s hat on makes me realise just what a huge challenge the people responsible for this are facing. I don’t envy them one bit.

Here a few of my student friends and colleagues sit and contemplate the moor’s special features.

A few moments before this shot was taken, we were walking across some very springy moss and I was saying that I was still shocked and thrilled to know that under our feet as we walked, there were many millions of moss sperm swimming around in the dampness of the moss, looking for moss ovaries to impregnate. My fellow students laughed and refused point-blank to believe me.

An hour or so later, our lecturer gathered us up into a group to discuss our progress with the challenge he’d set us and he talked about moss sperm whizzing around under our feet looking for ovaries to fertilise, at which point I and several of my friends, burst into fits of giggles that were OTT for the discussion……he didn’t realise that the joke was that they’d not believed me and it’d turned out to be true.

I’m still thrilled with all of this learning………