Autumn already? I hadn’t even noticed it creeping up! I’ve been super-busy since July taking some of the local kids from Possil through their John Muir Discovery Award, with the help of Children’s Inclusion Partnership (CHIP).
The John Muir Award, developed by The John Muir Trust to engage people with wildplaces, encourages awareness and responsibility for the natural environment in a spirit of fun, adventure and exploration. You must be able to show that you have explored and discovered a wild place, conserved it and shared your experiences in order to obtain an award; and we have certainly done just that! It takes 4 full days to complete the Discovery Award (which is the first award in a three-tiered scheme), however since I am only able to meet up with the group once or twice a week it has taken us a little longer. I have had so many other activities on lately to tell you about; here is a brief update for now, until my next blog when I will reveal all. I will let the pictures do most of the talking :).
On occasions a number of younger children and older family members from the community also joined the sessions running on the sites. They too will get recognition at the certificate ceremony, to thank them for their involvement in the projects and to make them feel included. I hope this will spurr them on to get involved in the conservation projects CHIP will be running on the sites in the future, give them a sense of achievement and ownership, and who knows maybe they will complete the John Muir Award.
Throughout the project I have been evaluating the participants’ levels of confidence, their use of greenspaces and attitudes towards the sites from start to finish. I am still working on the evaluation at the moment, however I can already see just from observation that the children in particular appreciate the ‘wildness’ of the sites. In fact, since I have been working in the area I have noticed more children playing on Possil Meadow (the wildest and largest site out of the two).
For more information about John Muir, you can visit the John Muir Award website to find out all about how you can get involved:
I also helped out at Hogganfield Loch LNR celebration event, with some wildflower planting (pictured below) and have been on more training courses which included Wildlife First Aid at Hesselhead Wildlife Rescue Centre and Scottish Mammals at Kindrogan Field Studies Centre (FSC).
At Hesselhead, highlights included learning how to pick up a Swan (a ‘tonne weight’ and daunting at first!) and I learned how to care for injured birds, hedgehogs and bats should I be unfortunate enough to come across any. At Kindrogan FSC, I learned how to undertake Red Squirrel hair tube sampling and mammal tracking tunnels (a skill I have now used for the John Muir Award project), how to look for signs of Otter and Watervole, I even got to set up camera traps and take part in a late night stake-out for the elusive Scottish Pinemarten.
I returned from Kindrogan earlier today, having completed my very last training session this year on Small Mammals; I learned how to do small mammal trapping, dissect owl pellets to identify species remains (pictured above) and had the amazing experience of getting to see Mountain Hare at Glenshee! Some of the other Natural Communities Trainees joined me, and we had an absolutely fantastic time! I am now even thinking of starting a small mammal recording group on my home island, the Isle of Bute.
Until then stay green … it’s nearly Halloween !!!