Its a rainy afternoon in July……it could have been any day right?? You can hear the slow drip and trickle of water under your feet, smell the fresh mosses, feel the tufty cotton grass between your fingers and see the brave souls atop the viewing tower, who have ventured out to Flanders Moss for the event of the summer….Off To The Bog!
Off To The Bog
Off To The Bog saw 11 adventurous people crammed into a minibus in Cultenhove and ferried to Flanders Moss, a National Nature Reserve and the largest remaining area of Lowland Raised Bog in the UK, complete with a 900m boardwalk and viewing tower. The constant rain didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s spirits, and they all enjoyed a guided walk, catching moths and looking at a habitat which they had never experienced before. They then took part in some pond dipping in a bog pool where we found loads of Dragonfly nymphs, water boatmen, water-skaters and a dead Great Diving Beetle which was huge! We then finished off the trip by searching for a non-existent GeoCache and making clay models of what they had found.
Continuing on the Summer Events theme, the next week saw the Nature Games rock into town. With all of 3 participants, there wasn’t much competition, however we had a great time taking part in events such as a scavenger hunt, pine cone throwing, sticky feet high jump and animal races….I ended up picking a tree out of the bag, needless to say I did not win against a salmon and an owl.
Nature Games
As requested from the
local community group COP, I added some bolt-on summer ranger events for their toddlers group and as part of their Summer Activities week for primary children. Both were a repeat of
Antler Moth
Minibeast Explorers and we went bug hunting in the greenspace around the community centre on two lovely summer days. Both days we saw loads of red soldier beetles, day-flying moths, ladybirds, ground beetles, flies, seed-bugs, small tortoiseshell butterflies and an antler moth.
Let the Bug Hunting begin!
My final summer event at Cultenhove, Batty about Moths, was unfortunately cancelled due to heavy rain forecast….however, as per usual, the weatherman got it wrong and it turned out to be a lovely, warm overcast evening, perfect for bats and moths. I was kicking myself for cancelling it, but not to fear, we Ranger Service are holding a Bat and Moth night on the 1st of September as part of Stirling’s annual Outdoors Festival (check it out…there are lots of things happening).
At the start of August, I helpedout John McFarlane at a community event in Greenock by holding a Bugs and Beasties stall with the help of TCV’s EVS volunteers. The sun was shining, the DJ was pumping out the tunes and lots of children (and adults) got to get up-close-and-personal with some of our creepy-crawly friends, including a Giant Horse-Fly which was the biggest fly I have ever seen…it was huuuuuge!
The Dream Team at Greenock!
Last week I held a workshop as part of Youth Services’
CREATE Summer Programme, a day of fun activities and games for secondary school pupils from across Stirling. My activity was called Orientreeing…..a mixture of Orienteering and Tre
e Identification around Balquhidderock Wood. Some of the young people were rather skeptical about the activity they had signed up for, but after an hour of running freely around the woodland and taking on the challenge, most of them had changed their minds.
Over the last month I have also carried out a butterfly survey at Plean Country Park and taken part in a Ranger Service excursion to two local bridges to scope out their potential for bats.
In between all this flurry of activity, I have also found time to take part in some practical tasks such as bracken-bashing in Killearn Glen in the rain, cutting back vegetation from the paths at Plean Country Park and uncovering an old WWII oven used by soldiers practicing in the trenches at Plean Country Park.
Before
After
Next week I will be facing my fears as I attend a Spider ID course! Wish me luck!
Thanks for reading! Bye for now!
Kate