Day 27 - Reading in the garden

Another busy day... home at 5:30, tea and a little reading in the garden was all I managed, while a collared dove looked on from above...

A look back...

Last year I had an after school wander at Hartington Meadows on day 27

And in 2015 I visited Peak Wildlife Park then went 'grasshoppering'!

Day 134 - In the garden

I've had a fairly quiet day today after lots of busy days.

My first job was checking my spore prints. I brought a couple of mushrooms home yesterday for this purpose.

If you've not taken a spore print before, it's really easy - just cut the stalk off your mushroom and put it gills down on a piece of paper, cover with a bowl and leave it to drop its spores. I left mine for a couple of hours and got a nice print, then moved the same piece before I went to bed and in the morning had another good print. You might need black paper as well as white for this as some fungi have white spores.

I spent some time in the garden, in the sunshine, this morning listening to a buzzard calling as it circled overhead, watching flocks of goldfinches and long tailed tits and sitting next to the 'sparrow hedge' noting the quiet chirping and frequent movement within.

male house sparrow in a tree

I noticed honeysuckle berries and a fresh new daisy (and some clover and other flowers too) and finally read my Wild Derbyshire magazine which arrived quite a few weeks ago, along with one from the BTO which arrived last week.

Day 66 - Wild Wednesday and The Boy who Spoke to the Earth

I've had a busy today, another 'Wild Wednesday' with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. Today's theme was Wild with Water. We had pond dipping and camp fire bread again, but also had a water vole trail, dragonfly making, origami frogs, leaf boats and a water filtering challenge.  I didn't have time to take photos but I did manage a photo of the last sticks of bread cooking around the camp fire towards the end of the session.

When I got home I was excited to discover that a book I had helped to fund via Kickstarter earlier in the year had arrived, all the way from America. I am looking forward to reading it.

Here's the lovely (short) video that made me want to own this book and help to ensure it was fully funded and could be published...

https://vimeo.com/117342662

Day 47 - In the garden with a basking shark ;)

School's out for summer, hurrah! I'm so, so tired and really looking forward to a rest next week - and perhaps a few lie ins!  Another busy day today but I spent some time outdoors this evening, eating my dinner in the garden and reading about one of my favourite sharks...

A very interesting article. I learned that these sharks used to be hunted for their liver oil which was used for lighting in the 1700s! It was also used in machinery and cosmetics and their skins used to make sandpaper and leather.  In the 1980s the market price of shark liver oil fell though they were still fished in the UK until 1997, when it became illegal to sell basking shark products. They were given full protection under the Wildlife and Countryside Act in 1998. They're classed as a vulnerable species but based on sightings in recent years it is thought there's now a stable population, though no one knows for certain. They do still suffer by becoming tangled in fishing nets and getting caught as by-catch.

A really interesting read and that's what I've learned about Basking Sharks today.  I'd love to see one (I'd really love to swim amongst them too!). This article is in the current issue (July/August) of Landlove Magazine if you want to read it. It also features harvest mice and wild swimming, amongst other things.

Day 27 - Peak Wildlife Park (and some grasshoppers!)

For Day 27 I decided to support a recently re-opened wildlife park.

Those are you who follow my main blog will probably recall posts from past visits to 'Blackbrook Zoological Park'.  Blackbrook went into administration a while back and was sold to new owners last year. The site has now partially re-opened as Peak Wildlife Park.

It is not fully open yet, but for a reduced ticket price visitors can see the animals currently in residence and help to support the conservation work.

Knowing that there is still work to be done at the park, I wasn't expecting a lot and to be honest, I didn't really go to see the animals this time but more to support the park so that they can continue their work.

I was really impressed! The changes that have been made are brilliant and although there isn't a lot to see at the moment, the experiences in the various areas are so much better than they were before and are especially good for children to really give them a close encounter with the animals that they'll probably remember forever!  Rather than all the animals being in separate cages and enclosures, visitors can now walk through various zones - amongst the animals - and the conditions and habitats are much better. The staff were all very pleasant too - friendly, helpful and informative.
I didn't arrive here until about 3:45 and that seemed to be afternoon nap time for many animals!  First we passed the otters - there was no sign of them, but we passed again later and they were out then.  The otter photos were taken through glass so they're not great.

In the warty pig enclosure there was a moorhen with three chicks...

and then we found two sleeping warty pigs around the other side. Again, a terrible photo taken through a window.

The tortoise was out and checking his perimeter!

Then I came to the Humboldt penguins. These are part of the European Endangered Species Programme - you can read a more about them via the link above to the park website.

The new information boards at the park are excellent... 

In the same enclosure as the penguins, you can see a mara

and three capybaras...

Guess what they were doing?!

It was feeding time for the lemurs so there was a lot more activity in 'Lemur Heights'. This ruffed lemur preferred to select his own snack...

ring tailed lemur

The ring tailed lemurs were very active; running, jumping, climbing and having the occasional scuffle with the ruffed lemurs.

This one has a baby on board - you can just see the head!

The brown lemurs were much more calm and civilised than the ruffed and ring tailed!

Next was a walk through 'Wallaby Wanderland'. I'd heard there was a mini version of the Roaches (the rocks where I grew up) so was looking forward to seeing this. Mini version of the Roaches was a very grand term for the rock pile in here, but it was a nice touch anyway (I'd pictured it more of a small scale, realistic model!). 

One of them had a joey...

You can carefully stroke the wallabies in here too :)

Reaching these cages, I started to see if any of the owls etc were still here but then I saw the notice...

 

Isn't it brilliant :) I don't know where all the birds have gone (before it became Blackbrook Zoo, this site started out as Blackbrook Bird World) - I assume they have been re-homed and hopefully gone on to better places.

The meerkats are still there and will be moving to a new enclosure next year, which is currently a work in progress.

There's also an enclosure called 'Himalayan Falls' where you can find rheas, guineafowl, runner ducks, peafowl and  Waldrapp ibis. Due to the very bright sunshine, I could hardly see so my photos were rubbish, but here are a few...

Waldrapp Ibis (or northern bald) - critically endangered

I noticed a few sparrow nests around. This male house sparrow was about to deliver a meal to the chick below.

Do take a look at the website to find out more about Peak Wildlife Park. I can highly recommend it!


Before heading home, I called in a RSPB Coombes Valley, which isn't far away, as I fancied a bit of 'grasshoppering'!

The first thing I spotted was a fly, like the one I found in the garden in yesterday's post. This one has the fungus clearly visible though and as it's rather like the earwig I found affected by this last year, I'm guessing it's the same kind of fungus - Entomophthorales, or 'insect destroyer'.

I found a green weevil

There were little spiders all over the ground, carrying egg sacs.

Then I finally heard some grasshoppers and after a bit of looking...

The last photo is the grasshopper from my finger safely returned to the wild :)


How did you go wild today?