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...

Birdsong in the Combe Valley

This week Ollie and I joined Alice Parfitt and Michael Blencowe from the Sussex Wildlife Trust  for an enlightening walk around the Filsham Reedbed Nature Reserve, part of the Combe Valley Countryside Park in Bexhill and Hastings.

 We hadn't done organised bird watching with a group before and weren't sure what to expect, but our morning out probably wasn't what you might imagine.  There was no sitting quietly for hours peering out of a hide, although without small people in tow this would have been quite relaxing.

What we did instead was perfect for high energy Ollie - a fantastic guided walk where we certainly weren't at much of a disadvantage for not owning good binoculars because mostly the birds announced their presence in song rather than sight.

With the aid of bird songs downloaded to a smartphone we were taught to distinguish the different songs we heard and the birds themselves put on a great show, with sedge, reed and Cetti's warbler all getting in on the act.

We learned about different habitats and habits of the birds and felt very welcomed and included in the group who all obviously had far more experience than us.  I'm good on plants and bugs, but birds are more of a mystery to me and I couldn't tell one little brown bird from another from a book, so hearing the clear difference in their songs was really interesting.

My favourite bird though was the brief glimpse of a Hobby zooming overhead chasing swifts (which it resembles - it looks like a giant swift or swallow in profile against the sky).  I've possibly seen them before but without any idea of what they were.  These are amazing birds - they migrate to Britain for the summer, coming all the way from Sub-Saharan Africa following the swifts and swallows that they eat.  They are so speedy they can even catch dragonflies - the masters of aerial maneuverability in the insect world.

We also had plenty of interest in seeing how the local landfill site is being converted into part of the country park, with part of it already covered and turfed, part with geotextile cover and methane gas exhaust chimneys visible, and part still accepting rubbish.  This made for a great opportunity to talk to Ollie about why it's important to recycle, and the economics of materials that have made it more economically viable today compared with in the past.

Ollie was pretty tired to start with after we had spent an hour running around on the football fields adjoining the reedbeds while we waited for the group to arrive, but even so we still had a really lovely morning.  Outdoor learning is unbeatable.