52 Weeks Wild #15

A collection of my wild moments from the past week...

This has been my wildest week of the year so far! It's the easter holidays so I'm technically off work but I did four days of Wildplay with Staffordshire Wildlife Trust and a Wild Party for Derbyshire Wildlife Trust so I've not had much time off!

On Monday the Wildplay session was at a nature reserve, Tuesday in two city parks, Wednesday was a day in the woods at one of SWT's reserves and Thursday we were in a country park. The activities this week were bird themed as Peregrine Watch has started again on The Roaches (where I grew up). We were making bird fliers and clay birds, had a bird of prey trail, binoculars and bird spotting sheets. There was bug hunting too as always - that's a popular activity - and we put the slackline up at each session too.  In the woods, because it's that little bit wilder than a park and is one of our reserves, we can have a fire (which we cooked popcorn over) and do proper den building, tree climbing, rope swinging and splash in muddy puddles!

Take a peregrine head and build the body from natural materials (this one is holding prey too!)

Clay birds was our suggested activity but we let children make what they want to with clay, including T Rex pencil holders!

Wych Elm in the evening sunshine on my journey home one day

Popping corn

One girl had brought brioche as a snack and asked if she could toast it!

Wednesday was a day with a Get Wild session in the morning, where parents drop off their 8-14 year olds and leave them with us for a morning of wild play, followed by a family drop in session in the afternoon. Somehow, I got a whole hour for lunch (oh what a luxury that was!) and spent it sitting by the campfire, listening to the bird song all around :)

(Just a phone snap hence the quality)

Bird spotting!

This is a robin

The same child made an easter bunny too, carrying an easter egg and a carrot.

When I got home from Wildplay on Wednesday, I signed up for 30 days wild again. Is anyone else joining in again this year?

I was expecting the tadpoles in the garden pond to hatch on Thursday, two weeks after the spawn was laid. I nipped down to the pond on Thursday morning before I left for Wildplay and they were wriggling and clearly about to start hatching. Later in the day when I was back home, almost all of them had hatched. The hatched tadpoles were all clumped together a little under the surface and there were a few still wriggling in their jelly and some looking quite undeveloped compared to the rest.
They're not easy to photograph with so much light reflecting on the water.

On Friday I had a day off! Mid-afternoon, I had a quick walk in the rain at Curbar and along Baslow Edge. I also paid a visit to Jolly's and had some hot chocolate and peanut salted caramel slice :)

On Saturday, I delivered a Wild Party for Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. It was lovely! A dragon party for a little boy who will be three on Monday and seven of his friends! They had a great time; we hunted for signs that dragons are living at Carsington water and found scratches on trees, dragon poo (alder cones), a (mossy) stump a dragon had sneezed all over... Then we talked about what other creatures might live nearby and went bug hunting to find some, which was very successful. Before going back to the classroom for party food, the children made a clay creation to take home...

On the way home from the party, I spotted a kestrel in a sycamore tree...

Oh, and I saw my first swallows of the year on Monday. They were flying around overhead during Monday's Wildplay session.


Today I've not been outside at all... It's been a wet day here so a good excuse to stay inside! I had a long lie in and have been reading and catching up with other things indoors. I have more Wildplay work next week though!