Autumnal activities

Last Sunday we headed up to the area of silver birch trees by Goosander Hide with our Young Naturalists to have a go at making besom brooms. The group felled a small tree each, then removed all the side branches and top, cut the pole to size and bundled the twigs together before binding them to the pole.

It was a lovely activity to do in the sunshine and they really enjoyed it. I hope a lot of sweeping went on this week!

Before heading back to the Centre we popped into Goosander Hide and were delighted to get really good views of a kingfisher. Thank you to Alan Burnett who was in the hide at the same time and very kindly shared his photos with us:

Kingfisher by Alan Burnett

Kingfisher by Alan Burnett

After lunch we cooked toffee apples over the campfire, which did take a bit of getting going, and they tasted scrummy!

Cooking toffee apples over the slightly smoky campfire

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

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Counting birds and a community fund

On Sunday our Young Naturalists took part in the garden bird watch, visiting the woodland hide and watching the feeder and trees close to the Education Centre, watching the birds for one hour and recording the highest number they saw of each bird species at any one time within that hour.

Talia and Poppy

 

Unsurprisingly, our top species was chaffinch, with 23 birds recorded at one time. This was followed by goldfinch (7), great tit (5), blue tit (5), long-tailed tit (4), greenfinch (4), blackbird (4), robin (4), brambling (4), siskin (3), dunnock (3), coal tit (2), nuthatch (1), jay (1), carrion crow (1), and lesser redpoll (1): sixteen different species in total.

Talia took some lovely photos of the different birds and has shared them with us for the blog:

Siskin by Talia Felstead

Robin by Talia Felstead

Long tailed tit by Talia Felstead

Great tit by Talia Felstead

Dunnock by Talia Felstead

Chaffinch by Talia Felstead

Chaffinch by Talia Felstead

Brambling by Talia Felstead

In addition to the birds we also spotted four bank voles and one brown rat.

Bank vole by Talia Felstead

After lunch we headed over to the area by Goosander hide to remove some of the young birch trees which have self seeded and started to dominate this part of the reserve. The smaller ones we either pulled out or levered out using a fork. Geoff had also made a very nifty sapling lever which we had a go at using. The larger trees we cut at waist height, hopefully reducing the likelihood of them continuing to grow – if coppiced low to the ground they would certainly sprout new shoots quickly.

Young Naturalist Megan has very kindly nominated our group for the Waitrose Community Matters fund and we’ve been chosen as one of their three charities throughout February at the Lymington store for a share of the months funding.

So, if you live in or near Lymington and shop in Waitrose, or feel like popping in throughout February, please make sure you get a token at the end of your shop and place it in our Young Naturalists pot to support the group!

Thank you, and thank you Megan for nominating us!

Our Young Naturalists are kindly supported by the Cameron Bespolka Trust.