What a difference six months makes…

At the end of September we headed back to the Purbecks with our Young Naturalists to repeat March’s snowy residential, and the weather was glorious!

Staying once again at Brenscombe Activity Centre, just outside Corfe Castle, we headed over on the Friday evening to make the most of the weekend. On Saturday we once again visited Brownsea, with the weather a stark contrast to the freezing cold of our last visit.

Brownsea Island from the Studland to Bournemouth Ferry

We met up with Dorset Wildlife Trust staff member Nicki and volunteer Claire, who took us on a guided walk around the part of the Island managed by the Wildlife Trust.

Start of our guided walk

From Low Hide we had great views of the birds on the Lagoon, spotting Cormorant, Black-headed gull, Spotted redshank, Avocet, Common redshank, Spoonbill, Little egret, Shelduck, Oystercatcher, Grey heron, Shoveler, Wigeon, Teal, Moorhen, Little ringed plover, Starling, Great black-backed gull and Dunlin.

We then headed further in to the reserve on our walk, past The Villa Wildlife Centre and through Venetia Park up to the viewpoint. This was the view we missed out on last time:

On our way we spotted Wood pigeon, Magpie, Coal tit, Great tit, Chaffinch, Blue tit, Pheasant, Nuthatch, Buzzard, Canada goose and on stopping to break for lunch we had great views of a Sparrowhawk overhead. We were now on our way to the beach and on a part of the reserve not open to the public – it was great for red squirrel spotting and we saw a number up in the tree tops.

After exploring the old buildings we headed down to the beach. At first look it was fairly clear of litter, but on closer inspection we managed to collect a fair amount of rubbish from the shoreline and spotted a few natural finds too, including crab claws, oyster shells and pottery fragments. Given this part of the reserve is not open to visitors, all of the litter we collected had washed on to the beach from the harbour.

After carrying the litter closer to the path for Nicki and Claire to collect later, we carried on with our walk and headed back towards The Villa, again red squirrel spotting along the way. We also spied a female Common darter basking in the sunshine.

On reaching The Villa we thanked Nicki and Claire for their time and made our way to the area by the Church. This spot had given us some great close up views of red squirrels last time we were here and we had about 45 minutes to spare before having to catch the boat back. We were lucky enough to get quite close to a Sika deer that wasn’t at all worried by all the people around her as well as peacocks and red squirrels.

We were enjoying the weather so much we decided to spend some time on the beach at Shell Bay after leaving Brownsea, paddling in the sea, beach combing and having a wander along the shoreline.

On the Sunday we headed up onto the ridge above the activity centre and walked towards Corfe Castle.

We then headed back to the coast, this time heading over to Kimmeridge Bay for some fossil hunting and rock pooling. Before going down to the beach we visited Dorset Wildlife Trust’s Fine Foundation Wild Seas Centre. We loved the indoor rock pool and the centre is well worth the visit if you are ever in the area.

To give the tide more time to go out we then walked up to Clavell Tower, enjoying the view down to Kimmeridge Bay below.

After lunch on the beach we began fossil hunting for ammonites, something the group really enjoyed as they constantly tried to find an ammonite to better than the one they already had.

Finally we finished off with some rock pooling and a walk back along the beach, looking for shrimp, anemones, fish, shells and larger ammonites still under the water:

Admittedly it was a while ago now, but we had a fabulous time in the Purbecks and certainly enjoyed the sunshine on the Saturday. The group really enjoyed spending time on the coast, spotting red squirrels on Brownsea and the beach clean, an activity they are very good at!

Thank you to Nicki and Claire for showing us around Brownsea on the Saturday and to our brilliant volunteers Geoff, Nigel and Michelle for again giving up another weekend to join us, we certainly couldn’t run the weekends away without them!

Our Young Naturalists group is kindly supported by the Cameron Bespolka Trust.

Shell bay

 

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Back to Beaulieu…

At the end of November we headed back to the Countryside Education Trust‘s Home Farm in Beaulieu for another two night Young Naturalists residential. With a few different people to our last visit in May, we had plans to re-visit some of the activities and places we enjoyed earlier in the year, whilst also doing something a little bit different. Here’s what we got up to…

After meeting on the Friday night, we woke up early on Saturday morning to a heavy frost. We had set some mammal traps the night before in the hope of catching a wood mouse or a bank vole, but given how cold it was overnight were relieved to find these were all empty!

Emptying our empty mammal traps!

Jess and Megan went off in search of some frosty photos whilst we cooked breakfast:

We then headed over to the Needs Ore Marshes, which form part of the North Solent National Nature Reserve for a beach clean in the sunshine. The group spent about an hour litter picking smaller items (sadly and not surprisingly there was an awful lot of plastic on the shoreline) and also dragging some of their more larger finds back along the shore to where we had based ourselves, including a rather large lobster pot and a rather large sheet of plastic! They didn’t seem too phased when I said we had to take everything back to the track to be collected on Monday by Reserves Officer Adam Wells…

We managed to find time to explore the shoreline for some more natural finds, discovering this sea urchin and oystercatcher skull amongst lots of other shells, crabs legs and more:

After lunch we headed over to the bird hides to see what else we could spot. We had begun a bird list that morning and had already spotted 33 different species on the drive to Needs Ore marshes and whilst on the shoreline: black headed gull, mute swan, mallard, blackbird, dunnock, rook, pheasant, feral pigeon, wood pigeon, peacock (!), red legged partridge, jackdaw, magpie, blue tit, long tailed tit, buzzard, lapwing, brent goose, oystercatcher, pied wagtail, knot, meadow pipit, common tern, little egret, chaffinch, stonechat, cormorant, turnstone, wheatear, robin, crow, kestrel and raven.

Heading to the hides

Whilst in and around the hides we added the following birds to our list: grey heron, curlew, coot, wigeon, Canada goose, black tailed godwit, shoveler, starling, goldfinch, gadwall, great tit, teal, tufted duck, pochard, pintail, shelduck, goldcrest, goosander, song thrush, wren, herring gull and greater black backed gull.

The most exciting spots however were the marsh harrier, which we watched hunting over the reed bed and a scaup:

Scaup by Megan Conway

We had been very lucky with the weather, although cold the sky had been a beautiful blue all day and we made the most of the photo opportunities the light provided us with.

Sunlight through the reed bed by Jess Parker

Moon by Jess Parker

Lobster pot by Jess Parker

We then headed back to Home Farm, for an early evening astronomy talk by Steve Tonkin, who gave us a guided tour of the night sky and entertained us with tales of Greek mythology.

Astronomy talk with Steve Tonkin

After the talk we headed outside to observe the night sky using binoculars and a selection of telescopes Steve had bought with him, spotting Cassiopeia, the Seven Sisters and the Andromeda galaxy. Whilst outside Talia set up her camera and took some fantastic photos of the sky.

On the Sunday, we met James from the CET for another fun farm feed session, assisting with some of the feeding tasks and collecting eggs. It was brilliant to once again get up close to the different animals.

We were then joined by Paul from Amews Falconry, who delighted the group with another fantastic talk on the history of falconry and a spectacular flying display. We were able to see up close a peregrine falcon, North American red tailed hawk, kestrel, European eagle owl, harris hawk and gyrfalcon and learnt lots about each bird.

Harris hawk by Talia Felstead

European eagle owl by Talia Felstead

Gyrfalcon by Talia Felstead

Gyrfalcon by Talia Felstead

Peregrine falcon by Talia Felstead

Harris hawk by Talia Felstead

North American red tailed hawk by Talia Felstead

Whilst listening to Paul’s talk, we spotted house sparrow and marsh tit which took our grand total of bird species for the weekend up to 59.

In the afternoon, we headed into the forest to meet Craig Daters from the New Forest National Park Authority, to discover more about the wild places on our doorstep. We met Craig at the pony sales yard and had a look around, learning more about commoning, conservation grazing and the New Forest pony.

Discovering more about the New Forest and commoning, with Craig from the New Forest National Park Authority

We then headed from Shatterford towards Denny Wood, pausing to discuss the New Forest’s different habitats, namely at this point heathland, mire and streams before reaching the woodland and engaging in some sensory activities:

After taking the time to explore this spot, something everyone in the group seemed to really enjoy, we discussed conservation designations with the help of a game and the different threats to national parks and other protected landscapes.

We had met up with Craig primarily as the group have begun to work towards their John Muir Award, and whilst the 10 minute video clip we watched on the Friday evening was a good introduction to the award, it was great to get outside and think about John Muir, the award and the special qualities of the wild spaces on our doorstep with someone else, so thank you Craig for joining us! We will be exploring other parts of the Forest over the coming months as we work towards completing the award.

It was then time to head back to Home Farm at the end of another busy weekend. the group had a lovely time, with their particular highlights being the time spent on the shore near Needs Ore and the activities in the Forest with Craig.

Exploring the shoreline

Thanks to Talia, Megan and Jess for taking lots of great photos over the weekend and for sharing them with me so I could include them on the blog. Thanks too to Craig from the New Forest NPA, James from the CET, Steve Tonkin and Paul from Amews Falconry for joining us and enthusing the group with their different specialisms.

Finally, thank you to volunteers Michelle, Geoff, Emily and Jonathan for giving up their weekend to join us, we definitely couldn’t offer a residential without your help and hard work!

Our Young Naturalists group is supported by the Cameron Bespolka Trust.