The next meeting of the Louth Wildlife Watch Group will be on Sunday 21 November starting at 2 pm. We will all meet at the café.
Louth’s Wildlife Watch Group joined forces with members of the Louth Navigation Trust at the historic Navigation Warehouse for their latest meeting on Sunday 24 October.
Twelve children aged between 3 and 11 years, and
their parents enjoyed an afternoon learning about the canal’s rich industrial
past and the fascinating nature to be found along its banks today.
Alison began the session with an overview of the
canal’s history, its development and change over time. Then Roger led the group
on a circular walk along the bank pointing out places of interest along the
way, which children were able to mark off on their own maps.
Returning to the warehouse children formed into
family groups to test out the popularity of different types of food on the
large duck population there. Sweetcorn and oats seemed to go down very well,
but peas were less well received.
Returning inside children engaged in a range of
nature related art activities including pairing waterside animals with their
habitats, drawing animals of the canal and designing their own poster to
publicise various aspects of the canal.
Before departing we all thanked the Navigation
and Wildlife organisers for the session, and parents took home a guide to canal
walks so that they could explore further on another occasion.
A thoroughly enjoyable experience for all!
Keith Palmer
Our next meeting for the Louth Wildlife Watch Group will be on Sunday 24 October at 2 pm at the Louth Navigation Warehouse (Riverhead road LN110DA).
We will -
We were very lucky on Sunday to avoid the showers when we met at Legbourne Wood to look at Autumn seeds, fruits and berries. Eleven children and eight adults attended. (Some by bike – well done to them!)
Whilst waiting to begin our walk the children looked for hidden fruits and berries on a ‘Forest floor’ sheet. They began to match some of the fruits and berries with the appropriate leaves.
Once we were ready the children made some good suggestions for health and safety issues and Keith filled in those they hadn’t thought of.
On the first part of the path the children looked for various seeds and collected them in a tub where appropriate. They were very thoughtful about only taking what they needed and about taking care in what to pick. After a while we stopped and talked about seed dispersal. We discussed why it was necessary and thought of different methods plants used. As each method was described the children looked through their tubs for examples to match.
For the next part of the walk, the children were given a sheet naming six trees to which they had to match the appropriate leaves and fruiting bodies. We looked at examples of some of the trees on the way and many of the children were keen to add to their seed collection. We also noticed that there were some different plants on this section of the walk as the path was in more sunlight. When we reached our next point we talked about what we thought the most common trees in Legbourne Wood were and went through the sheet together with the children offering their results.
Next the children (and those adults who were allowed by their offsprings to assist!) eagerly participated in an orienteering activity. There were four different options that Keith had devised and each spelled a nature word if completed correctly. This was a very popular activity and several children completed many if not all of the options.
In addition, they were also able to make a small rotating ‘helicopter’ to reproduce the effect of maple, ash and sycamore keys and make a seed/berry idial to aid with tree and seed matching.
As we returned we talked about our session and looked at the different parts of the wood especially where a large area had been cleared, presumably due to Ash dieback.
All in all – an ex-seed-ingly enjoyable and productive
meeting.
Louise Scott
The next meeting of the Louth Wildlife Watch Group will be on Sunday 19 September starting at 2 pm.
We will be making a circular route through the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust's woods at Legbourne, meeting at the small car park at the end of Wood Lane (coming from Louth, turn right onto Mill Lane in Legbourne village, then bear left onto Wood Lane at the fork).You are invited to join a Moth and Bat evening, organised by the Rimac Watch Group, on Friday 27th August at 7.45pm until late.
Our next Watch meeting will be on Sunday August 22nd, starting at 2pm.
