Wildflower explorers

 Last week we made the most of the sunshine and got out and about to see the Spring flowers in all their glory.

We took a magnifying glass, a spotter guide and a couple of sandwich bags for samples.

We passes swathes of yellow celandine and then passed into the main woods, with their mingled smell of bluebells and wild garlic.

 The boys carefully looked at the flowers and learned to use the spotter book to look them up.  They then took samples of the commonest varieties that are not protected, smelled everything and enjoyed the riotous singing of the birds and the warmth of the sunshine.  Flowers that appeared in the spotting book were duly awarded a 'seen it' sticker, the time of year ticked, and other observations noted down.

They also compared bare trees with those just starting to come into leaf, and described the differences in leaf shapes and colours.  We all enjoyed watching the tiny caterpillars dangling from silk suspended high above in the newly greening oak trees (this is a defence mechanism to escape predators above I believe).  We even saw a few early butterflies - a male Brimstone, a Speckled Wood and a Peacock butterfly.


For preserving flowers it isn't necessary to buy a flower press.  When we got home we simply laid out a sheet of newspaper each, put a sheet of white paper on this and laid out our flowers so that they didn't touch.  Another sheet of white paper was laid on top, and then another sheet of newspaper.  Finally all was entombed beneath a random selection of books grabbed by the boys based on merit of weightiness.  This was left for two days and then deconstructed to reveal the neatly pressed flowers.

The boys were really excited about their successfully pressed flowers.  Any that had a page in the spotter book were taped in with scotch tape (it doesn't brown and peel with age like regular tape).  Extras were taped into exercise books with the name of the flower and other details noted down. There was a disappointment when the webpage given on each page of the book in order to report sightings kept crashing so it was unusable, but all of the non techy elements of the project went really well,

This is definitely an activity we'll come back to time and time again as both boys have requested it since, and there is a whole world of plants out there to keep them interested.









Book list:  We used 'Wildflower detectives' handbook' from Miles Kelly and The Wildlife Trusts, ISBN 9781848102491 (a pound shop bargain)
plus my old friend the Wildflower Key by Francis Rose, which is excellent for more experienced botanisers


Safety bit: usual precautions and common sense when out and about, for example not picking anything if you don't know exactly what it is - firstly because it could be harmful (the anemone pictured above has a poison warning for example, which I assessed to be safe for our purposes as the kids are old enough to take the warning not to eat it), and secondly because it could be rare and protected (such as the temptingly numerous bluebells which are both protected and poisonous, so not the best candidates for picking).  It's good practice to get kids into the habit of checking with you if it's ok to pick something, and if so how much - the dandelions and daisies can be picked in abundance, but you may only want one specimen of something like a buttercup, the sap of which can cause skin irritation in some folks.  Picking cautiously in places where dogs visit is also advised, dog mess and broken glass are constant things to be vigilant for on our local walks.  I usually take hand wipes and sanitizer with me on any walks, along with a basic first aid kit, sun hats etc...

RSPB Dungeness, brilliant introduction to wetland wildlife

 To start a post off with a picture of some poo may not seem like a normal thing to do, but when you couple that poo (a badgers) with two small boys newly armed with backpacks full identification charts and binoculars, poo suddenly becomes one of the highlights of a brilliant first ever trip to visit RSPB Dungeness.  Ollie had a fantastic Christmas present from my in laws last year - a year's membership of the RSPB's kids club, complete with identification book and bimonthly activity magazines.  With one thing and another, it's taken us far too long to go and make use of Ollie's free entry pass to visit a reserve.

I wasn't sure how well the boys would take to bird watching - I was worried that the requirement to sit still and quiet so as not to offend people who know what they're doing was  going to be too much for a three year old and a five year old.  I anticipated a bit of a trudge with moaning kids followed by two minute sit downs with lots of shushing while we peered at distant unidentifiable blobs (we only have kids binoculars, which actually make it harder to see than using nothing).  As it turned out, the RSPB was well set up for kids, with backpacks available to borrow filled with everything we could need.  Binoculars and ID guides were accompanied by colouring and tick sheets, bug pots and magnifiers.  The binoculars were really good quality ones, not the plastic kid toys you might expect in a junior pack.  I have weird eyes which prevent me from seeing properly through bins, but Ollie's joyous reaction to seeing clouds and birds in the distance told me how good they were, as did Matt's assurance of how much clearer the duck-looking-things were.

I want to be good at birds, but much as I like them I can't tell many of the duck-looking-things, ducks-on-stilts, seagull-looking-things and sparrow-looking-things apart. When a kind young birder in a hide hushedly told us 'there's a rough over there on that island' he must have thought me a complete idiot with my vague 'oo, is there, thanks'.  I looked it up when he'd gone, apparently it is not a 'rough' as my brain interpreted the word, but a 'ruff' - in my vocabulary one of the 'ducks-on-stilts' group. 

As well as an assortment of ducks, ducks on stilts and seagulls (which Ollie corrected us on 'not seagulls, just gulls, proper scientists don't call them seagulls') there were also an amazing array of beautiful dragonflies and damselflies whirring around, with swallows whizzing past attempting to match their insect rivals for title of best flyer.  We saw butterflies enjoying the rich habitat and Matt even saw a lizard scuttle across the path in front of him while I was immersed in watching a cool parasitic ichneumon wasp hunting for hosts.

Toby got a little restless in the hides, but the backpack kept him occupied and I'd bring him out a bit before Matt and Ollie to give them a chance to have a good look.  Ollie sat with rapt attention, really enjoying searching out the birds with the binoculars.  While they were in the hide, I scruffled around the plants looking for bugs and showing Toby the interesting flowers, like this lovely mullein complete with wonderfully downy leaves.

 There were several hides, all looking out onto different aspects of the site, all with panoramas of an interesting mixture of wild-looking wetlands and very obviously industrial additions such as the Dungeness Power Station and the multitude of electricity pylons.  I liked the light here, something about it makes the colours stand out.  The waters were a deep blue beneath the pale sky, with golds and greens in the reeds dividing up the image.  The camera on my phone doesn't do justice to it.

 Wildlife jumped out at us from every direction - there was even a frog in one the puddles the heavy rain last week left on the track as we walked back to the centre.  This provided great interest to the kids as they then had to check every puddle for frogs.

 Some of the watery inhabitants were familiar but lovely to find even so, like this ramshorn snail, probably the biggest I've seen outside of an aquarium tank.  Other finds were more unexpected, such as weathered and gnarly whale bones which I might have walked past thinking they were driftwood if it hadn't have been for the helpful signpost.

 
 
 


 So I think today was a real success, and a large part of that was down to the kindness of the RSPB staff in providing the activity backpacks for the kids to borrow.  I would definitely recommend it as a great place to visit, whether you are a seasoned birder or just starting out.






Notes:  The site is accessible for pushchairs and wheelchairs.  There are toilets available in the car park, including disabled and baby change facilities.  There are also few picnic benches in the car park (we fed the kids an early lunch before entering to avoid trailing round with the chorus of 'I'm hungry').  There is a gift shop but I didn't notice a café so bring a thermos if you're planning on making a day of it.  No dogs (except guide dogs) allowed on site, but if you have a dog there is the nearby Rye Nature Reserve as a dog walking alternative where you can still see lots of wetland birds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minibeast explorers

 There are few activities as absorbing as bug hunting, so why not set up your own minibeast safari in your back yard or local park.

I'm lucky to have a few handy bits of kit, including some bug viewers and a plastic tank, but you can make your own kit very easily by using an old clean ice cream tub to observe your finds in.   You might like to use identification guides.  The field studies council has some lovely fold out guides that are perfect for surviving being taken outside where books might get soggy and dog-eared.

We started by talking about what we were going hunting for today while the kids got their boots on.  I haven't found their appetite for bug hunting ever diminishes with repetition, but just to add an extra sense of purpose we'll pick a particular creature we especially want to find.  On this day it was a millipede, so we talked about where we might find millipedes - what kind of habitat they might like and what they eat.  Millipedes are herbivorous and well adapted to wriggling down into the soil to get to roots and decaying leaves, so we decided to dig around the plants for them and look under rocks and pots.  We looked in a book to see what they looked like, and how they are different to a centipede.

Moving the plant pots around we mostly found woodlice and worms, to Toby's great delight.  I reminded the boys that these creatures like to be cool and damp so our hands can hurt them, so we gently transferred our finds to a plastic tank with some damp compost in it to observe them further.

Toby particularly liked watching the big pill bug type woodlice roll up into a ball and I talked to the boys about why the bugs did this.  Ollie couldn't quite grasp that this might protect them from predators because, in his words 'we could just swallow them whole'.  We talked about it until he decided it might help if it was a very tiny thing trying to eat them.

We did eventually find a millipede, but it was so tiny I'm not sure it was much use for the boys to see very clearly what they look like.  Hopefully we'll have better luck another day, although we never get particularly big ones here.

After we had a good hunt round the garden we went inside and did a thorough hand wash - Ollie discovered how difficult it is to wash off slug slime.  Then we sat down with a tray to look at our finds in a bit more detail.  I keep this part fairly quick as we don't want to cause discomfort to the animals.

We decided to look at a snail and a woodlouse as these look very different from each other.  In the boy's first pictures they each drew the snail and the woodlouse.  Ollie was a bit worried he couldn't draw 14 legs, but was pleased with his squiggly legs in the end.  This time the only thing I prompted Ollie to add was the segments on its body, but other times the conversation might go like this -  'first draw a long rounded body, now he needs some legs, look at him, does he have any antennae? Great, lets draw those on - do you think the antennae are on his head or his bottom?  Why?  What are they for...' until your little one is happy with their picture.  You may want to label the parts with them. 

Guiding what to look for is helpful and helps to build the vocabulary that your kids will want so they can describe to you what they're looking at, but after we've produced one guided picture I take a more hands-off approach and see what the boys want to draw next.  Ollie decided to draw the plastic tank, including leaves for 'homes for the animals'.  Toby made one lovely drawing of a snail while saying 'round a round a round a round' and also a woodlouse that surprising looks quite like a woodlouse.  Ollie's first picture is here on the blog.



Safety bit: as I've mentioned on previous similar posts, check your local guidelines for whether you have any hazardous creatures living in your local area if you are outside the UK - in our garden we might get a nip from a centipede or a sting from a bee, but most of our wildlife is pretty harmless.  I encourage the kids to only pick up familiar things that they have held before such as snails and to check with me before they handle anything unfamiliar.  Hand washing is really important too.  Soap and water is best, but I carry a hand sanitizer liquid for when we're exploring away from home.