Tuesday 11 March: Forest School!

Luckily, I didn’t get stuck in mud this time, but I still got covered in dirt from hanging out at the mud kitchen. Not only did I get a 3-course meal with Spaghetti Bolognese as my main, but I also got treated to a lovely hand mud spa treatment afterwards. I’ve been told this will do wonders for my hands, and totally not an excuse to cover me in mud. Along with cooking the Michelin star meal, the kids enjoyed creating a marble run using pipes and conkers. It was a great task for them to try and figure out how to use the surrounding environment and have even managed to make the conker jump across a giant gap. They also have an ongoing activity of making a weather station which they started to paint today.

Wednesday 12 and Friday 13

The first school visits of the year! Bar Hill primary school joined us at Ramsey Heights for two days. Each day included a nature walk, den building, and pond dipping. As soon as they arrived, they were ecstatic to start the day, running around full of energy and talking about their den designs. During the first session, I mainly hung back to learn how a school visit goes, but by the second session on Friday, I felt confident enough to chat and tell them some cool facts I learnt. I even helped with their identification skills on invertebrates while pond dipping, showing them damselflies, phantom midge larvae and water boatman under the microscope. Every creature they captured they rushed up to ask to see it under the microscope which felt great to see their curiosity.

After Friday’s session, we headed off to St. Wendreda church in March to set up for the flora exhibit. The Great Fen had a table to show off some photography that was taken in Woodwalton Fen, Holme Fen and Ramsey Heights. Claire and I spent a while preparing for this, and we were pleased with how it ended up! Claire did an amazing job on organising the photos and creating a key chart. We even added in a shot of some Sphagnum moss from the paludiculture experiment fields, and, of course, we had to include the fungi from Holme Fen!

My highlight of the week was spotting a water vole! I was sitting in the office doing some work when Laura messaged me saying she was spying on one. It was just sitting in some reeds nibbling away while we quietly watched, before it finally swam away. Since then, I’ve been constantly checking the area, but sadly I hear it plop in the water before I arrive. Still exciting to see my first water vole!