Activity: Rainy days at home

When it's raining non-stop (like it is at the moment!) it can be hard to get outside for any length of time.  Although it might be fun to go for a short walk, anything longer than that can just feel miserable if it's cold and raining really heavily.  There are however, lots of things you can do inside that can still help you connect with nature and feel like you're bringing a bit of the outside to the inside....

☔ Make a toy raft or boat

After the rain has gone, there will be heaps of puddles left on the ground.  Make a boat out of paper or a raft out of twigs or straws.  Think about how to ensure it will float!  Once the rain has cleared away, head outside and see which one floats best!

☔ Collect rainwater

Rainwater is brilliant for the garden as it contains lots of different minerals and seeds which help our ecosystems flourish.  Watering the garden with tap water is ok, but there will still be traces of chemicals such as chlorine in it which over time may not be great for our plants. Rainwater is best, so when its is tipping down quickly dash out and put some buckets and watering cans in the garden and see how much you collect!

☔ Indoor gardening

Gardening in the rain is a bit exhausting and you don't want your tools to get damaged or the ground to get churned up as it softens with the water.  Have a go at some indoor gardening instead!  Plant out some seeds into little pots (they can be old yoghurt pots) or see if you can get them to sprout on damp tissue or cotton wool. You can also try placing the left over stems of celery or spring onions into a jam jar of water. You'll be surprised at how much they can grow just in water!

☔ Write a poem

Many famous writers and poets were inspired by the weather around them.  Grab a notebook and a pencil and look out at the rain for inspiration.  Listen to the sounds of the rain and see if you can include any onomatopoeia (sound words) such as pitter-patter, spit-spot....

☔ Make a biosphere

A biosphere is an enclosed ecosystem that regulates its own oxygen, carbon dioxide and water levels.  Planet Earth is actually a biosphere! You can make your own mini biosphere using just a jam jar.  Clean your jam jar and then place some sand or gravel in the bottom. Add a layer of good draining soil and then a few features such as pieces of bark or rocks. Add some moss and a few small slow-growing plants.  You can even add a beetle or worm of you can find one! Finally, water your biosphere, put the lid on, and place it somewhere where it has sunlight but not too direct as this will make it too hot. 

☔ Raindrop race

Find a window that has rain drops running down it! You might need to open the window to make a bit of an angle for the raindrops to fall on.  Find someone else to race against, and then each pick a raindrop and see whose is the first to reach the bottom!

☔ Indoor bird watching

Set up an indoor area where you can look out and watch for wildlife.  Use some binoculars if you have any and watch for any birds that come to visit!  See if you can identify different types of birds.  If you're not sure, try counting them instead and see how many pass through in  time frame like 15 minutes or half an hour.  Look for how their behaviour changes too.   Do birds behave differently if there is a cat nearby? How many like using a bird feeder or a bird bath?

☔ Watch a nature documentary

There are so many different nature documentaries available on platforms such as BBC iplayer.  If you don't feel like going outside, now is the time to pick a documentary and learn something about animals and wildlife elsewhere in the UK or in a completely different part of the world!

☔ Cloud gazing

There are so many different types of clouds that bring different types of rain and weather.  Look up at the sky and see what the clouds are doing.  Can you identify different types? Are they dark grey rain clouds or towering storm clouds? Is the cloud high up or does it feel like its low down like fog or mist?Are the clouds moving quickly in the wind or staying in one place?  Make observations every 15 minutes of what is happening. 

☔ Make a bird feeder

Birds are always grateful for extra food supply, especially going into autumn and winter when food sources might become a bit more scarce.  Get some seeds such as sunflower seeds or mixed bird seed, and some chopped nuts such as peanuts. Mix together with some breadcrumbs, crumbled cheese and soft dried fruit.  Add some softened lard and mix together to form a paste.  Get a yoghurt port and make a hole in the bottom.  Push some string through and tie a knot on the inside of the pot so it hangs upside down like a bell.  Fill the pot with your bird food mixture and leave in the fridge for a few hours.  When it has solidified, hang upside down outside and wait for the birds to visit!

Moth Night 2020

It was a strange coincidence this week when I happened to spot a beautiful angle shades moth on our garden bin, and on the same day hear that Moth Night was happening this week! We normally think of butterflies as beautiful and colourful creatures, whereas moths are often thought of as strange nocturnal creatures that fly transfixed towards lamps, windows and flames. But both are essential to any thriving ecosystem and have a valid role to play.

Moths are important pollinators as their fluffy bodies are great at picking up pollen from flowers.  They tend to pollinate white and yellow flowers are these are more easily spotted in the dark.  Moths are also a vital part of the food web as they provide a plentiful food source for animals such as bats.  Both adult moths and young moths in the form of caterpillars are eaten by a wide variety of nesting birds and other mammals.  We may think of moths as being dull brown cousins of the butterfly, but there are around 11,000 different species of moths displaying an amazing array of colours and patterns.  They are also fantastic mimics of their surroundings and other insects, an important evolutionary adaptation if they are to survive being predated on but so many other creatures!

This month, Moth Night is being celebrated from 27th-29th August 2020. It is an annual celebration of moths and an opportunity to record data to help ecologists track and understand how moth populations are doing.  To find out more and how to get involved, visit mothnight.info and learn how to trap moths and identify different species.  

Activity: Build a pond

Freshwater species rely on having access to fresh, clean water sources throughout the year.  They can usually find this in rural and wooded areas where there may be rivers and streams nearby, but we can also encourage aquatic wildlife into our gardens by providing them with a fresh water source.

Making a pond might sound like a big undertaking but it can be really easy!  If you haven't already got a pond in your garden or Forest School area then think about creating one yourself, or perhaps working as a team and making a project out of building one together.  You can then monitor it and see what wildlife starts to use it and live on or around the water!

1. Choose an area that receives some sunlight but not all day.  

2. Find a container to make your pond (it can be as small as a tupperware container or as large as a big crate!)  Dig a whole in the ground and place your container inside.  If your container isn't watertight, line it with a piece of pond liner.

3. Add a layer of stones and rocks into the pond to create different levels.  You might also need to put some rocks outside your pond so that creatures can climb in and out.  

4. Fill your pond with water (rainwater is best as it doesn't contain nasty chemicals).

5. Choose some species such as a miniature waterlily, lesser spearwort, starwort, or flowering rush to place inside your pond.  

6. Watch and see what starts to arrive!

Click here for more info and pictures for how to make your pond

The value of pond life

I recently came across a family of little frogs in our garden and it struck me that it can be so easy to provide for our water or aquatic wildlife, even if you don't have much space.  We focus so much (and rightly so!) on our pollinating insects such as bees and making sure we have enough flowers and greenery in our garden, but there is a lot we can also do for creatures and insects that live in and around water.

Ponds can be natural features of the landscape, but lots of people also build ponds into their gardens as part of the landscaping or aesthetic of their garden, or even to have the calming sound of water trickling down through a water feature.  Ponds can be as small as one meter across, or as large as a football pitch! They can support many freshwater species such a frogs, toads, mayflies, damselflies, pondweed, newts, and much more.  Sadly around 50% of ponds were lost in the UK during the 20th century and 80% of those that remain are in a poor state.  Around two thirds of freshwater species are supported by ponds so they are a vitally important ecosystem.

Creating your own garden pond is a great idea because it will be small and you can therefore keep an eye on it and manage it easily.  Natural ponds may be affected by farming run off and pollution, but you can keep your own pond clean and free of any unwanted chemicals.  Plus, having tadpoles and newts can make a great science investigation as you watch them grow! 

To find out more about ponds, click on the links below:

🐸 Importance of ponds - Freshwater Habitats Trust

🐸 How to build a pond - Wildlife Trusts

🐸 Supporting your pond - RSPB

Activity: Flower pressing

At this time of year the beautiful summer flowers are just about to reach the end of their blooming phase. Before they completely go, have a try at doing some flower pressing! 🌸

Use any flowers from your garden or balcony or window box, and make them into a pretty little display that you could either frame or turn into a hand-crafted note card for someone.

1. Select the flowers you wish to press and make sure they are dry and free of soil

2. Place your flowers in an arrangement that you like onto a sheet of blotting paper or poster paper

3. Cover over with another piece of blotting paper or poster paper and then place between two flat, heavy objects such as two large hardback books

4. Move your press to a dry, warm place such as an airing cupboard or above a radiator

5. Check your press every 12-24 hours until you are happy that it is dried out

6. Mount your press in a frame or fix to a card with PVA which will dry colourless

Click here to read more about how to press flowers from the RHS 🌸

Help a hedgehog!

Hedgehogs are one of the UK's most loved wild animals but sadly they are in decline with over a third of hedgehogs lost over the last 20 years.  Hedgehogs can be found in both the countryside and in towns and cities, and the reasons for decline may be different in both.

In the countryside, the use of pesticides may reduce the availability of food for hedgehogs and a loss of field margins and hedgerows may limit the number of places where they can live.  Additionally, increasing numbers of badgers may reduce hedgehog populations as the badgers predate on them.

In the cities, garden fencing can make it more difficult for hedgehogs to move around and overly managed gardens or artificial grasses make it harder for hedgehogs to find the habitat and food sources that they need. Busy roads can also lead to more fatalities as hedgehogs may try to cross when migrating.  

The People's Trust for Endangered Species are doing lots of work to try to help protect hedgehogs, and you can get involved too!  There is a whole heap of information on their website about how to help hedgehogs and how to survey them so we can have a more accurate idea of their numbers.  

Use the links below to find out more:

🌰 People's Trust for Endangered Species

🌰 How to be a hedgehog champion

🌰 Facts about hedgehogs

🌰 How to help hedgehogs

🌰 Hedgehog activities

World Orangutan Day

Orangutans are one of the world's most amazing primates with their soulful eyes and intriguing personalities. Sadly, they are also one the world's most threatened species and are on the critically endangered list. There are now only around 100,000 orangutans still remaining in the wild and their habitats are still under as much pressure as ever.

Orangutans are vitally important in the rainforest as they help to spread seeds around and this makes the forest a richer and more biodiverse habitat.  However, rainforests are often cut down to make way for palm oil plantations instead and this means that the orang-utans have less and less space in which to live. They are also often hunted for meat or the pet trade.  Climate change is further altering the rainforest's natural cycles, meaning that there may not be enough food available to meet the orangutans' needs.  

We can help by doing simple actions such as making sure we don't buy products that contain palm oil as this will reduce the amount of plantations needed.  The WWF also have an 'Adopt an Orangutan' scheme where you can pay to make sure an orangutan is looked after in its natural habitat.  Charities like the WWF are also investing in schemes such as Forest Certification and Tree Planting to make sure that the habitats of orang-utans are restored.

Click here to find out more about how to help orangutans:

🐵 The WWF - Orangutans 

🐵 The Orangutan Foundation

🐵 Save the Orangutan

The importance of allotments

This week is the UK's National Allotments Week! 🌱🍎🐓🌽🐝

Allotments are small areas of land that people can rent for either a short or a long time to grow fruit, vegetables, or keep hens, rabbits and bees.  Many people like to own allotments as they give you more space than an average garden (most allotment spaces are about the same size as a tennis court) and you can use every inch to grow produce and keep animals.  Allotments are also amazing community spaces where people can meet and talk to each other about what they are growing and share tools and equipment. They give people a chance to get outdoors and be self-sufficient even if their house doesn't have much of a garden.

There are so many benefits to having an allotment. One of the main ones is the fact that it brings people together and makes a community that people feel connected with.  This can help to reduce loneliness and isolation, and just being outdoors with other likeminded people can really boost people's mental health and help them feel like they are making a positive contribution.  

Working with nature all year-round gives people a greater appreciation for the environment and an understanding of how ecosystems work and what they need in order to thrive.  This is turn can make people more environmentally-aware and more likely to make green choices in other parts of their life and influence others.

Growing your own fruit and veg is a fantastic way to reduce your carbon footprint and limit your consumption of food that has been grown in other parts of the world and transported a long distance to reach your supermarket.  You are more likely to just grow what you need and then share or compost any left over to prevent it going to waste.  Experiencing the success of growing your own food also brings a greater feeling of achievement and you are more likely to savour its delicious home-grown flavour!

Finally, the impact of gardening on both your mental and physical health are immense.  Just being outside and moving around your allotments with your tools will work your muscles and improve your balance and coordination.  Being in the sunshine will help to boost your vitamin D levels and improve your mood, and this combined with seeing your fellow allotments workers will help you feel happy and joyful at being in the outdoors ☺

To find out more about allotments, visit these links below:

🌽 The National Allotment Society

🌽 The Wildlife Trusts

🌽 The Royal Horticultural Society

🌽 The Soil Association

🌽 BBC - gardening guide

Check out our updated 'Get involved' links

Click on the 'Get involved' tab to find ways of helping nature in your local area or join a global campaign to help protect the environment!  No matter how big or small your efforts, together they will all go a long way to helping restore nature to the planet and support wildlife in its natural habitat.

🌲 Forestry England

Sign up to their summer challenge and put your forest skills to the test!

🌲 The Wildlife Trust

Download the '30 days wild' app and see how many of their activities you can complete

🌲 Just One Tree

Plant one tree for £1...visit their website to find out more

🌲 Wild Forest School

Choose an outdoor activity to complete

🌲 Keep Britain Tidy or Rubbish Walks

Look up when local litter picks are happening near you and get involved

🌲 UK Student Climate Network

Find out when climate change strikes are happening near you and what else you can do to help

Large blue butterflies return to the UK

The Cotswolds have seen the return of a butterfly called the large blue. This butterfly had not been seen for around 150 years, but a very careful reintroduction strategy has helped it successfully return to the area.

To help it survive, the habitat had been had been managed and turned into a thriving grassland which is ideal for large blues to live in.  Scientists and ecologists also studied the butterfly's life cycle and feeding habits in order to best understand its chances of survival.  Some 1,100 larvae were then released with around 750 butterflies now existing Rodborough Common in Gloucestershire.

This is one of the first very successful projects which has seen a previously extinct insect species successfully introduced.  The National Trust, Butterfly Conservation, and Back from the Brink organisations worked together along with local groups to make it all happen.  

🐛 To find out more, click the link here to read about the project.

🐛 To learn more about the large blue butterfly, click the link here to visit the Butterfly Conservation website.

Save the bees

National Honeybee Day is coming up later this week! 🐝

Bees are so incredibly important for our ecosystems. As pollinators, bees play a crucial role in helping plants fertilise and grow, and this produces a richer ecosystem that can support a greater number of plant and insects. A single bee may visit hundreds of flowers in one journey to and from the hive, and so we need to ensure that there is a rich environment of flowers and nectar for them to thrive on.

Many towns and cities are reluctant to grow the types of flowers and fruiting trees or bushes that would be good for bees because they require too much maintenance or can become a hazard.  We need to try and make bee-friendly environments wherever we can, whether that is in your front or back garden, or even on a balcony or terrace, or window box!  Anywhere you can get flowers or fruiting plants, bees will thrive.

Find out how you can do more to help bees here:

🐝 The British Bee Keepers Association

🐝 The Honeybee Conservancy 

🐝 The Wildlife Trusts 

🐝 Bumblebee Conservation Trust

🐝 Friends of the Earth

World Elephant Day 2020

Today is World Elephant Day!

Here are some interesting facts about our wonderful elephants:

🐘 Elephants are the world's largest land mammal

🐘 African elephants have bigger ears than Asian elephants

🐘 Elephants can use their trunks for drinking, eating peanuts, and snorkelling while swimming!

🐘 Elephants' tusks are actually teeth which they can use for feeding or fighting

🐘 Elephants have very thick and wrinkly skin which they keep clean by taking regular dust and mud baths

🐘 Elephants need around 150kg of food a day, which means they spend most of their time eating

🐘 Elephants can communicate using vibrations through the ground, as well as louder trumpet calls

🐘 Baby elephant calves can walk within an hour of being born which helps to keep them safe

🐘 Elephants have very large brains meaning that they have an excellent memory!

🐘 Many African elephants are sadly being killed for their ivory tusks, and Asian elephants are in decline due to habitat loss

How can I help?

You can adopt an elephant with the WWF

You can read up about elephants and how to help protect them

Tweet #worldelephantday to help spread the word

Sign the World Elephant Day pledge to show your support

If you want to see real elephants in the wild, look for eco-friendly tour operators

International Owl Awareness Day

Today is International Owl Awareness Day!  But what is so special about owls? 

Well, did you know that owls are found all over the world apart from the polar regions and remote islands? They are a type of bird and they only come out at night (they are nocturnal).  There are over 200 different types of owls, but the ones you might see or hear in the UK are often either barn owls, tawny owls, little owls, long-eared owls or short-eared owls. 

Owls have excellent hearing and binocular vision which makes them very good at hunting.  They mainly eat rodents (like mice), fish and other small birds.  The average barn owl might eat around 1000 mice a year!  Owls fly very silently which makes them excellent hunters compared to some other birds.

The next time you are out in the woods, listen out for the distinctive calls from different owls.  Some species have a more traditional 'hoo hoo' sound, whereas others make a 'ke-wick' sound.  Visit the Wildlife Trust's page about identifying owls to find out more and listen to some of their calls. 

Big Butterfly Count 2020

If you haven't already got involved, try and make time to take part in the Big Butterfly Count of 2020! You have one more week to do some counts, and you can do them anywhere near where you live whether in a garden, park or just looking outside your front door.  

Use the app 'Big Butterfly Count' or log onto their website at https://bigbutterflycount.butterfly-conservation.org

Find a warm and sunny spot and count the number of butterflies that you see in 15 minutes.  It doesn't matter if you don't even see any! The Butterfly Conservation still want to know :)

My Little World and Me

Welcome to my new blog - My Little World and Me!

My passion for the environment began when I was very little and I have always wanted to take action to help look after nature and educate people (mainly children!) in understanding how it works.  I try to follow the work of different organisations such as the Wildlife Trust, the RSPB and many others who are all trying to work together to collect information about the environment and get people involved in protecting it.  

I have taught geography at secondary school for six years and now work in primary schools.  I have also volunteered with a Forest School and loved the outdoor approach to learning.  I now wish to reach out to people more widely in environmental education and raising awareness of local, national and global environmental issues.  

I hope this blog becomes a useful place to find out what is happening in different parts of the country and indeed the world, and inspires communities to get involved.