Day 30; #30DaysWild - Mammal Trapping Training

The final day of #30DaysWild was spent in Much Wenlock doing some training with the rest of the group. We did some small mammal trapping training! This was done so that we could get an idea on the reasons why we trap small mammals (to see what's in an area to update local biological records) and also to show us how to do it, so we can do this for our jobs if needed.

Every June the Wildlife Trusts run a campaign called 30 Days Wild. This year I shall be taking part! It is my first time doing the challenge, and I’ve been planning lots of things to do over the month. The idea is to encourage wildness, exploration and an involvement with the natural world. The daily things can be anything, from walking barefoot, to doing outdoor yoga, or growing veg to hunting out woodlice under a stone. Little things that help you reconnect with nature!

Day 29; #30DaysWild - Ladybird Pupae

Day 29 of #30DaysWild was spent at Shropshire Wildlife Trust HQ, in central Shrewsbury. There is a really nice garden here, full of ideas to use at home. While having a mooch round and eating some of the ripe raspberries, I saw a ladybird pupae!

Every June the Wildlife Trusts run a campaign called 30 Days Wild. This year I shall be taking part! It is my first time doing the challenge, and I’ve been planning lots of things to do over the month. The idea is to encourage wildness, exploration and an involvement with the natural world. The daily things can be anything, from walking barefoot, to doing outdoor yoga, or growing veg to hunting out woodlice under a stone. Little things that help you reconnect with nature!

Day 28; #30DaysWild - Fossil Hunting at Stokes Barn

Stokes Barn just outside Much Wenlock is made from local stone. In this case, it is Much Wenlock Limestone, ie the best rock ever if you’re me aka a geology geek. The walls of the barn are FULL of fossils from an ancient reef system, and I love looking at them and showing them to others.

Solitary coral.

Stromatoporoid.

Every June the Wildlife Trusts run a campaign called 30 Days Wild. This year I shall be taking part! It is my first time doing the challenge, and I’ve been planning lots of things to do over the month. The idea is to encourage wildness, exploration and an involvement with the natural world. The daily things can be anything, from walking barefoot, to doing outdoor yoga, or growing veg to hunting out woodlice under a stone. Little things that help you reconnect with nature!

Day 27; #30DaysWild - Cloud ID & Aerobatics

Day 27 of #30DaysWild was spent at a barn just outside Much Wenlock, chilling in the garden with the other Wildlife Trust trainees. We sat and played games, laughed a lot, watched a plane do aerobatics and identified some clouds.

"High Level Wispies"

Every June the Wildlife Trusts run a campaign called 30 Days Wild. This year I shall be taking part! It is my first time doing the challenge, and I’ve been planning lots of things to do over the month. The idea is to encourage wildness, exploration and an involvement with the natural world. The daily things can be anything, from walking barefoot, to doing outdoor yoga, or growing veg to hunting out woodlice under a stone. Little things that help you reconnect with nature!

Day 26; #30DaysWild - Sand Martens

For Day 26 of #30DaysWild I went up to Attenborough Nature Reserve for a bee ID course. On the lunch break I went for a mooch and watched some sand martens flying in and out of their nest holes, feeding their babbies.

Every June the Wildlife Trusts run a campaign called 30 Days Wild. This year I shall be taking part! It is my first time doing the challenge, and I’ve been planning lots of things to do over the month. The idea is to encourage wildness, exploration and an involvement with the natural world. The daily things can be anything, from walking barefoot, to doing outdoor yoga, or growing veg to hunting out woodlice under a stone. Little things that help you reconnect with nature!

Day 24; #30DaysWild - Toft Alpaca Stud

On Day 24 of #30DaysWild, my friend and I retired to Toft Alpaca Stud, to cry over the EU Referendum result. I ate bakewell and generally was fucking miserable.

Every June the Wildlife Trusts run a campaign called 30 Days Wild. This year I shall be taking part! It is my first time doing the challenge, and I’ve been planning lots of things to do over the month. The idea is to encourage wildness, exploration and an involvement with the natural world. The daily things can be anything, from walking barefoot, to doing outdoor yoga, or growing veg to hunting out woodlice under a stone. Little things that help you reconnect with nature!

Day 23; #30DaysWild – Lapworth Museum of Geology

I blogged about this museum way back in 2013 on my other blog and now it has been redeveloped, and it is incredible! Such a change, but it was much needed.

The change to this place is AMAZING and I can’t quite believe it; I in fact just stood by the front door with my mouth open for ages. I really like that the original display cabinets were kept, and it’s so bright and open and welcoming and brilliant and I can’t even begin to explain how massively amazing it is, and how I’m glad I studied there for 4 years, and how the team have worked mega hard to do this!

Every June the Wildlife Trusts run a campaign called 30 Days Wild. This year I shall be taking part! It is my first time doing the challenge, and I’ve been planning lots of things to do over the month. The idea is to encourage wildness, exploration and an involvement with the natural world. The daily things can be anything, from walking barefoot, to doing outdoor yoga, or growing veg to hunting out woodlice under a stone. Little things that help you reconnect with nature!

Day 22; #30DaysWild – Walk Leadership Training

I spent a day at the War Memorial Park in Coventry doing some walk leadership training, with a view to becoming a certified health walks leader! Hopefully I will be able to complete this training soon and then begin to lead guided walks around some of the Wildlife Trust sites, or maybe around the City Centre. I have grand plans for this!

I had never been to the War Memorial Park prior to this so it was great to visit a new place and explore a bit. This park is huge! And amazing! It has so many different areas to it, long grass areas to allow wildflowers to grow, a rock garden, remnants of the old abbey (I think – maybe the cathedral) that were put here during the clean up after the Blitz. It was great to walk around and see a new part of Coventry too.

Every June the Wildlife Trusts run a campaign called 30 Days Wild. This year I shall be taking part! It is my first time doing the challenge, and I’ve been planning lots of things to do over the month. The idea is to encourage wildness, exploration and an involvement with the natural world. The daily things can be anything, from walking barefoot, to doing outdoor yoga, or growing veg to hunting out woodlice under a stone. Little things that help you reconnect with nature!

Day 20; #30DaysWild – Centre of the Earth

One of the Wildlife Trust sites can be found in Winson Green, Birmingham. It is called Centre of the Earth and will hopefully be coming back into regular use by the Trust, and I am hoping it starts to run courses for the local community. This was the first time I had been there, and although it is currently looking neglected, I think it has a lot of potential. 

At the front of the building there are two areas of grass, and one of these was full of bee orchids - beautiful! This place is about two miles out of the City Centre and the amount of wildlife and flowers here are amazing. There is also private access to a short stretch of the Soho Loop on the canal, a beautiful place to sit and eat lunch.

Every June the Wildlife Trusts run a campaign called 30 Days Wild. This year I shall be taking part! It is my first time doing the challenge, and I’ve been planning lots of things to do over the month. The idea is to encourage wildness, exploration and an involvement with the natural world. The daily things can be anything, from walking barefoot, to doing outdoor yoga, or growing veg to hunting out woodlice under a stone. Little things that help you reconnect with nature!

Day 19; #30DaysWild – Meadow Surveying at Moseley Bog

I spend a lot of time at this nature reserve, which is great news when you’re doing 30 Days Wild!

As part of our ongoing work at the B&BC Wildlife Trust, we carry out surveying of the flora across our sites, which gives us an idea of how successful our projects are and what we need to work on in the future. Aside from my ridiculous hayfever, this was a really nice relaxing Sunday!

Common white wave moth

A bug.

Every June the Wildlife Trusts run a campaign called 30 Days Wild. This year I shall be taking part! It is my first time doing the challenge, and I’ve been planning lots of things to do over the month. The idea is to encourage wildness, exploration and an involvement with the natural world. The daily things can be anything, from walking barefoot, to doing outdoor yoga, or growing veg to hunting out woodlice under a stone. Little things that help you reconnect with nature!

Day 18; #30DaysWild – Wildflower ID Course

As part of my traineeship at the Birmingham & Black Country Wildlife Trust I have a training budget to develop my skill set, so I decided to spend some of it on a wildflower identification course with the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust. My wildflower knowledge is slim to none, and I wanted to learn how to identify plants in the wild. The course was great and I learnt lots, especially how to use a key to identify plants – my book shopping list is ever growing!

Idle Valley Nature Reserve

Bee orchid

A 'petal' from a composite flower - each 'petal' is actually an individual flower!

Day 17; #30DaysWild – Wild Verge at the Lickey Hills

Didn’t do day 16 for some reason or another…!

On day 17 I decided to go and look at a verge near the Lickey Hills Country Park. I had seen this verge many times as I drove past, or to and from the Lickeys, and the orchids here are so large and plentiful that they catch the eye, so I went to have a proper look. I counted 127 when I was there!

Common Spotted Orchid

Every June the Wildlife Trusts run a campaign called 30 Days Wild. This year I shall be taking part! It is my first time doing the challenge, and I’ve been planning lots of things to do over the month. The idea is to encourage wildness, exploration and an involvement with the natural world. The daily things can be anything, from walking barefoot, to doing outdoor yoga, or growing veg to hunting out woodlice under a stone. Little things that help you reconnect with nature!

Day 15; #30DaysWild – Orchid Spotting at Moseley Bog

Moseley Bog is a nature reserve in south Birmingham, and as part of my traineeship I help to look after it! With the help of the regular volunteer group, the Friends of Moseley Bog, we had a look to see how many orchids we could find across three meadows. We found three different types of orchid (and there is possibly another type elsewhere on site!)

Southern Marsh

Common Spotted

Pyramidal

Big Meadow

Every June the Wildlife Trusts run a campaign called 30 Days Wild. This year I shall be taking part! It is my first time doing the challenge, and I’ve been planning lots of things to do over the month. The idea is to encourage wildness, exploration and an involvement with the natural world. The daily things can be anything, from walking barefoot, to doing outdoor yoga, or growing veg to hunting out woodlice under a stone. Little things that help you reconnect with nature!