Why hello fellow nature, community and conservation enthusiasts! It is once again that time of the month where I tell you all about my latest ranger-ing shenanigans!
I have been mega-busy over the last month or so laying down great plans for my personal project; a Ranger events programme which will run within Cultenhove throughout the summer holidays. Behold my beautiful poster:
All I need now is for the bookings to come flooding in!
Swinging through the trees on a Luxembourgish high-ropes course!
After taking a nice break in Luxembourg for a few days, it was back to being a busy-bee!
On my return, Iattended an Odonata (Dragonflies and damselflies) workshop at Glasgow University, run by the very knowledgeable Jonathan Willet. We saw loads of damselflies out at Possil Marsh but sadly no dragonflies!
I have also attended several community meetings, including the Stirling Community Forum 5, which is a quarterly get-together of a cluster of community councils to discuss and tackle shared issues.
I spent the Jubilee weekend building Bug Boxes with a local church group and Sunday School in Dunblane at their spring open day. Everyone had a great time, and I even enjoyed it despite hammering my own thumb a couple of times!
Last week, I gained some new skills in Phase 1 Habitat Surveying. This was one course I really wanted to get under my belt, and my traineeship provided the perfect opportunity to do the course. We had a lovely couple of days surveying Holyrood Park in Edinburgh and drawing habitat maps.
On Sunday, I helped out one of my colleagues to hold a Natural Art activity held on behalf of the Ochils Landscape Partnership. The families had a great time creating art using natural materials.
'Baaad Hair Day' by me
'Invisible Sticky Monster'
More photos from that day can be found on the Stirling Council Ranger Service Facebook page.
This week, I took part in a flyer drop in Cultenhove, delivering community consultation flyers for the proposed Cultenhove ‘Community Park’. I’ll tell you, there are some very evil letter boxes out there! I have the bruise to prove it!
This month’s outdoor ranger meeting took us out to Killearn Glen to tidy up after an archaeology event and to pull up bracken…..a never-ending task!
Bracken Pulling in Killearn Glen
On Wednesday, Helen and I went on a grand (accidental) adventure by getting the wrong train to Ayr, much to the hilarity of our fellow trainees! We were attending an Environmental Education training course, which was very much a participatory event! 🙂
Trainee Snail!
And finally, I spent yesterday at King’s Park in Stirling, helping to conduct a plant survey of the area, run by one of my old university lecturers, Roy Sexton. Roy and his fellow botanists were extremely knowledgeable about our native and not-so-native plants, and my mind still boggles as to how they manage to remember all the scientific Latin names of the species we found. They were like walking plant ID books! Amazing!
I am still enjoying every second, and still can’t believe what an amazing opportunity this is.
Until the next time, merci and Äddi. 🙂