So I thought I would write a quick blog about my most recent event at Ardeer Quarry LNR (Stevenston) which was an Animal Tracks and Signs guided walk. The event itself was very successful, the only downside was capturing signs of animals on our camera trap and only getting a roe deer’s backside – I’m not demanding a roe deer selfie but I feel like it was just rude to not say hello to the camera trap. I will get on to that later.
Some of the highlights of my traineeship have been working with partnership organisations to put together wildlife events at the weekend. Just recently we had our Animal Tracks and Signs Walk, which is a great way of engaging people in their local green spaces in ways they may never have thought. I often find when you engage a good group of people on different aspects of their local green spaces, piece by piece they start to build up a respect and different level of understanding not only for there but the bigger picture as well.
Deer Tracks in a simple Track trap. All you need is water, muddy area to flatten with a stick or your hands.
The event we ran included adults and kids which for me is encouraging as kids learning from a young age creates active environmental supporters for the future. We started by talking about the purpose of today, tracking animals for records and building up notes to put into databases. We then dived in to some owl pellet dissection, which is a fun task no matter the age. Pellets are things that animals regurgitate, and are great ways of analysing the animals lifestyle. In the Owl’s case we got a look in to its diet from the animal bones that were in the pellet, which is an indicator of the mammal numbers in an area – the life cycle of an ecosystem is part of the picture we try to paint with wildlife events.
We moved in to the woods to look for animal tracks (we could see deer in the distance so moved towards them) and signs of activity. We found mole mounds, possible animal sniff holes, roe deer biting and marking on trees, egg shells + bird nests. As we moved through the woods we would explain the behaviours of the animals tracks and why it is important to make notes of these. At the end when we had collected information we moved on to the camera trap which unfortunately was in the end just a deer’s bum, but everyone had a great time and felt like they were confident using some of the track methods we used at home. I will continue to run various wildlife events throughout the year as I try and reveal the hidden gems about a green place which has eluded them.
The Tracking Crew