August Session at the Wetlands

We had by far the worst weather of all our sessions at Arundel today...IN AUGUST, it poured and the boys didn't have coats! They were prepared in as much as they took gardening gloves and wore long trousers but were soaked to the skin by the time they had finished their outdoor task which was to weed around and monitor the hedgerow saplings they planted back in April.

Armed with secateurs they worked as a single file team to chop away nettles, thistles, bramble, cow parsley, willow herb and dock. Connor stayed the other side of the hedgerow to pile the thrown weeds into tidy piles, he was regularly attacked by flying brambles and nettles!

They noticed that the thistle was thicker away from tree coverage suggesting they grow stronger in more sunlight and through discussion they observed that it was mostly 75/80% thistle followed by cow parsley and dock growing in the area. The weeds had grown exponentially in comparison to the saplings, taking over and strangling their progress.

Monica and the team decided to leave a controlled area at one end of the hedge to let the weeds grow freely to see what impact it has on the growth of the saplings.

During this mission, the younger group were bug hunting and one child enthusiastically came over with a tiny newt inside a spotting jar; a welcome and exciting distraction. Unfortunately I was too slow to get a photo as Monica was keen it was returned to its home as soon as possible being such a young juvenile.

When the weeding was complete, the braver of the group wanted to stay outside for their turn to bug hunt and successfully spotted wood louse, spiders, a millipede and empty snail shells. The rest of the group headed indoors to dry off and took a snack break which for Nath and Connor involved hot chocolate...yes IN AUGUST!!!

Fortunately the remainder of the session was indoors and the team got to handle some captured moths in spotting jars which had been sedated in the fridge, before creating and assembling their own bug hotels to take home and position in the garden. The Wetlands provided dried reeds, tubes, cups, straw, shredded paper etc and of course each child came up with their own unique and individual designs.

Ribboned Wave?

Oak Eggar?

Getting creative

A selection of our posters in the Wetlands cafe area

The boys poster

Ecological Random Sampling

Another session at the WWT this afternoon on a very warm and sunny day. My brother and family who are visiting from Oz tagged along and spent a couple of hours wandering the reserve while the boys worked.

After the boys had shown their homework - this time graphs recording reed growth - they took part in weeding around the new hedglings they had planted a couple of months ago. We focused on getting rid of the willow herb and dock as without gloves no one was going to tackle the nettles! The idea being that as the willow fence deteriorates the hedglings grow and form their own fence. We measured their growth and identified what hedglings we could; so far there is definitely sloe, hawthorn  and privet.

Then they did some ecological random sampling; a summary of what that is and how it's done can be read here countrysideinfo.co.uk and here, saps.org.uk.

The kids "randomly" threw their quadrats - not as easy as it looks, a couple acted as boomerangs and flew off - and recorded the various species within its area. Some species they could identify but others were a little more difficult and remained unidentified, but it was more about counting the number of species and the percentage area they took up in the square.

A lost gosling delayed us starting as we ushered it back in the direction it came from

A very overgrown wild garden

Our new hedge plantings by the willow fence. Lots of teasel, thistles and docks in the way 

Monica explaining why we leave weeding until the weed has established more

Everyone in shorts trying to avoid the thistles and nettles.

Connor threw the first quadrat into a sunny spot

Samples of the first quadrat

Samples of the first quadrat

Samples of the first quadrat
English Plantain

Samples of the first quadrat
Oxeye daisy and bramble

Samples of the first quadrat
Bindweed, mint and grass

Samples of the first quadrat

Our observations from the first quadrat
Oxeye not oxide!

Nath threw the second quadrat into a shady spot

Samples of the second quadrat
4 unidentified species

Our observations of the second quadrat with possibly a tansy leaf sample

Quadrat observations by others

Quadrat observations by others

The take home task was to analyse everyone's findings today and carry out further random samplings in our own areas. Also to write a paragraph about a section of the wildlife garden the boys selected as potentially being successful for a nature reserve.

As for the boys reeds, they now stand at 19cm and 48cm. Connor's reeds have been growing at a rate of 1cm per day since Friday and the unidentified plants in Nath's reeds have caught up in height.

Soon going to be too big for the windowsill!