As promised here is a picture of the finished giant butterfly which was used at BBC’s Live and Deadly event in Glasgow. The wings are covered with small paper butterflies coloured in by 100’s of children.
If you live in Scotland then the title of this blog will make more sense. At the end of September we had a brief Indian Summer, then Autumn arrived and on the 6th October and I saw my first snow of the year on the Cairngorm mountains after a great couple of days at Abernethy with my fellow Natural Communities apprentices.
Whislt at Abernethy we had a day of discussing means of engaging with communities which was incredibly uesful, and I think we all learned a great deal. The following day we had the privelage of getting out into the forest at Abernethy. The RSPB reserve contains the largest remaining fragment of Calledonian pine forest, making it a very special place for wildlife. Our tasks for the day including “restructuring” the forest. This involved winching over smaller tree to create a more open canopy structure and dead wood, an vital invertebrate habitat often lacking from modern woodlands due to our need to tidy and keep woodlands safe from falling wood.
More recently I was on Arran helping BTCV and the National Trust for Scotland deliver a Rocky Shore outing for a BME group from Glasgow. Amazingly the sun shone and everyone had a great day rock pooling. We found crabs, sea urchins, blennies and star fish to name but a few. I even saw 2 Red Admiral butterflies at the National Trust Castle gardens, the last I will see this year in Scotland I am sure.
Yesterday was another great day at Rouken Glen Park in Glasgow, an event organised by Florence, another Natural Communities apprentice. Lots of families came along and I gave a guided nature walk. To guarentee some “wildlife” Florence and I placed small card pictures of butterflies around the park and had children search for them. I wish I had thought of this in the summer as I saw very few butterflies due to the awful weather. We also saw a few birds and squirrels as well as talking about some of the amazing trees growing in the park.