Day 59 - Wild Wednesday: Super Senses

My third day in a row of a full day of Wildplay! Today was voluntary, with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust rather than my paid work with Staffordshire Wildlife Trust.

It's been ages since I've been able to do a bit of voluntary work with Derbyshire (I think the last one I did was a Halloween event during October half term) as I have to prioritise the paid Wildlife Trust work and between that, school and needing some time off in the school holidays, I'm kept pretty busy! This summer though I've kept a few days free specially for volunteering with DWT as I love working with them at Carsington (I much prefer it to the SWT work if I'm honest, and unlike with Staffs, it's in places I know, like and visit often too).

So... today was the first of the 'My Wild Summer' events - Wild Wednesday. This week's theme was Super Senses and there were some good activities on offer - a texture scavenger hunt, make your own kazoo, cooking bread on the camp fire, making wind spirals, collage pictures, pond dipping and the smelly sock challenge (identifying the smell we'd put inside each of a few socks).

I arrived at 10am to help get ready and set up in the outdoor classroom and then spent from 11:15 to 3:15 pond dipping! I did sneak away when the pond dipping closed for a bit and had 15 minutes quiet time to eat a sandwich, out of the sun and away from people, but aside from that I spent pretty most of the day on my knees (and boy do they know it, I'm getting old, hehe!) getting wet and muddy!It was the first day this week it hasn't rained on me at Wildplay - I think my head even got a bit sunburnt (again)!

I love pond dipping though and I was happy to lead it all day. The other volunteer was not so keen and preferred doing the crafty things and greeting visitors so that worked well. It was busy - approximately 100 children attended and there was a non-stop stream of children at the pond to keep me busy. They all had a good time and most of them really loved the pond dipping (Some of their grown ups did too!) and enjoyed learning what I could tell them about all the creatures caught.

The pond was full of water boatmen and baby newts of various sizes. We also found damselfly and dragonfly nymphs, lesser water boatmen, a few small leeches, tadpoles with legs and a few other fly larvae. 

Once again, there was no time to take photos but I did grab a few just before I put the last of the creatures back in the pond and packed away.

A lovely view for the day - the pond with Carsington Water in the background.

I did also manage a quick photo of the last bread cooking at the end of the day

It was a good day and I came home feeling really tired (and with a headache) but happy to have spent a whole day pond dipping and getting dirty, and seeing children so engaged with nature!

It was the sort of day that put me in mind of this...

check, check and check!

I'm doing a couple of other Wild Wednesdays with DWT so am looking forward to the next one :)