Wild October : Day 12

This morning I saved a field vole from a cat :)

Well, I hope it survived. I gave it a chance at survival at least. It didn't appear to be harmed and it seemed bright eyed and active after I'd caught it to release back in to the wild.

Later, between taking Gran shopping and going to school for the afternoon, instead of having half an hour at home as I usually do, I headed straight to school and stopped to eat an apple for lunch whilst sitting on a wall on the way...

I usually teach phonics for an hour every afternoon but today's phonics sessions were cancelled due to a class being out on their trip educational visit. Instead, I had an hour supervising outdoor free play in the EYFS. There were lots of fallen leaves around so I made a hedgehog and tried to get a few of the children involved in creating some kind of natural art.

Only three children showed any interest but that's better than none at all I guess! This is what one of them created. I bribed them a little as all three wanted to use the school camera so I said if they created a piece of leaf art they could take a photo of it themselves which they enjoyed doing!

It's very rare I get to do anything natured related or outdoors at school so my hour outdoors was quite a treat today, especially as the sun was shining once again!

Wild October : Day 2

I decided this morning that today was the day to finally go to Jodrell Bank - I've wanted to go for a while as it's been quite a while since I last visited.

I love the telescopes and the science, but that alone isn't the main attraction for me here. My favourite thing about JB (aside from the Lovell Telescope!) is the gardens.

I spent a couple of hours in the gardens and arboretum on the site. Lots of autumn colours appearing, crunchy leaves to scuffle through and a lot of wasps and dragonflies flying around too.

I'm short on time this evening so I shall let the pictures do the talking. I don't think they need many words to be honest! 

The hornbeam mentioned on the info board above

As  I was heading back towards the entrance from the gardens I kept hearing a raven but couldn't spot it. When I reached the visitor centre, I realised it was at the top of the tower below, by a couple of satellite dishes.

There were two of them :)

On the way home, I saw a polecat! Unfortunately I only saw a polecat because it looked like this...

I saw one dead on a Staffordshire road a while back but really doubted myself when I thought it was a polecat as I wasn't sure if there were any around here. This one was in Cheshire and I know they've been found on roads in Derbyshire too so I guess today I've confirmed for myself that there are polecats in the 'three shires' area around me :)