Hello, it’s been a while since my last blog so I thought I would share some of the activities that I’ve been getting up to within the Inner Forth area over the past couple of months!
Following the busy summer with many events and natural play sessions with TCV, October gave myself and fellow trainee Scott some time to think about using what we learnt over the summer with local groups in the Inner Forth area……
Hawkhill Community Association
Over the past couple of months, Scott and I have been visiting Hawkhill Community Centre in Alloa, where we have been running natural play sessions with the Youth club. We’ve had great fun working with the kids here. The youth club have been participating in lots of different activities with us including: playing wildlife-based games, going on nature hunts and taking part in natural art. Have a look below at some of the fantastic pictures they made using natural material. The sessions we’ve ran have been a great success so far, with really positive feedback from the children and the community centre. We’re hoping to be able to go back again soon.
We’ve also been meeting with the Hawkhill Man-up group and once with the women’s group. Check out some of the fabulous natural art that members from the women’s group created below. Collecting natural material (leaves, flowers, etc) from the gardens surrounding the community centre, they carefully arranged and placed their findings onto their very own ‘nature artist’s pallet’.
Nature artist’s pallet
The Man-Up group most recently took part in the OPAL soil survey which they really enjoyed. The soil survey involved them: digging into the ground to look for earthworms, measuring the pH of the soil, and working out what type of soil they had in different locations around the community centre. I’ll next be visiting the man-up group in a couple of weeks time to go on a nature walk (fingers crossed the weather will hold up!), looking out for winter wildlife along the way. I’ll let you all know how we get on!
OPAL soil survey
Gartmorn Dam Country Park
Scott and I also recently went to visit some of the volunteers from the Disability Awareness Group who work at the sunken garden project at Gartmorn Dam. Unfortunately the weather was awful but that didn’t stop us! We had a good bird-watching survey of the dam from the south side and recorded quite a few species.
Bird watching at Gartmorn Dam
We also managed to do a small ‘dam-dip’, using a large pond net to gather the different invertebrates living within the water. We actually got some surprisingly good results and found: many, many tiny shrimp, diving beetles, water boatmen, backswimmers, water slaters, leeches and midge larvae. All in all – some great findings!
Lots of water bugs in the dam!
One of the most amazing things I’ve noticed about Gartmorn Dam Country Park is the incredible diversity of lichens growing all over tree trunks and branches. The volunteers got to know some of the common lichen species to look out for and learnt how they can be used as air quality indicators by taking part in the OPAL air quality survey.
OPAL Air Quality survey at Gartmorn Dam
We really hope to be able to go back again soon when hopefully the whole DAG group can take part.
Training
I’ve been on a few exciting training courses over the past couple of months, with the most recent ones being: an environmental games & activities training course and a badgers survey techniques training course. The environmental games & activities course gave me more great ideas for outdoor activities to do with groups of all ages and levels of ability.
The badgers course gave me a fantastic insight into searching for badger setts, what to look out for and how to record my findings. These new skills were great for taking part in last weekend’s Stirling badger blitz ran by Scottish Badgers. I’m now also hoping to be part of the new Stirling badger group.
I’m looking forward to many of the other ecology-related training opportunities next year so I’ll keep you posted with how they all go.
Please get in touch:
If you are part of a community group in the Inner Forth area and would like to know more information about taking part in some of the activities with TCV including: wildlife recording, nature walks, natural art or natural play for children, please feel free to contact me for further information on: r.cairns@tcv.org.uk or 01786 476188.
Thank you!
Rebecca Cairns
(Coastal Communties (Discovering Nature Trainee))