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| Primroses out in bloom. |
February has flown by for us! We started the month by welcoming
in a volunteer group from Harlow College. The students helped to complete a
huge litter pick of the reserve, cleared out the ditches and helped move some
fencing materials into the newly coppiced area. Tough work but they did a great
job!
We also had our visitors popping in to make a bird feeder
for their own gardens. Lots of fun and mess to be had by everyone, with the
kids having a great time getting their hands stuck into the feeder mix! If you
made a feeder and hung it in your garden, let us know if anything interesting
comes along for a bite to eat!
We also had our 4th Afternoon Tea, which was
nearly fully booked! Lots of tea was drunk and cakes and scones and sandwiches
were enjoyed by all. Everything looked delicious and went down a treat. The
weather was also lovely, with the primroses opening up beautifully in the
sunshine!
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| Practicing our fire lighting skills...and tea drinking skills. |
February also saw half term activities, such as a pre-school
fairy-tale themed fun day! Hundreds of you joined us for a free trail hunt,
messy play and arts and crafts. Although it was a bit muddy on the trail, it didn’t
stop the youngsters from running around and enjoying themselves, finding the
fairy-tale characters along the trail. Glitter and mud is quite an interesting combination
to try and remove from the chairs in the classroom though!
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| Baking on a campfire at the training week. |
For staff, February saw the Manager, Josey, heading up to
Cumbria for a training week on Forest School. With the practical assessments
completed, we’re hoping to start running regular forest schools at the reserve
as an afternoon club, so watch this space!
Visitors have been busy spotting some great wildlife this
month, with a possible sighting of a Kite over the reserve. We’ve also started
to see the birds carrying out their courtship behaviors, with the woodpeckers
drumming throughout the reserve and thrushes singing within too. Frogspawn has
also been spotted, so we’ll grab a bit and set some up in the visitor center
for you to see how the tadpoles develop.
February’s photography competition winner is Carol Gifford,
with a beautiful shot of the Oak trees in silhouette against a blue sky.
Wonderful! The theme for March is ‘Signs of Spring’, so get snapping for your
chance to win a 2-4-1 coffee and cake voucher! Be it buds on a tree or birds
gathering nesting materials, there is lots to see out there!
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| February's photo contest winning entry! |
