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Spending time with people was the theme of our Nature Adventure today as we worked with, talked with and laughed with some amazing people. Our GKC Learners worked alongside volunteers from the TCV and were fortunate to meet people from GCC like our new friend Derek, one of the Senior Horticultural Specialists up at Pollok. We worked with Countryside Ranger Gavin playing our small part in the development of the COVID Memorial Garden at Pollok.

We talked about the future and realised that we were playing our own small part in a project that would last throughout the years. Words, Wild Flowers and Sculptures would play there part with the names of all of those who contributed to the memorial garden being remembered as the flowers bloom and grow year after year. We learned how sculptures would sit in this area which would allow people to reflect on the struggles that they have been through throughouyt the COVID Pandemic. To know we played our part made learning all the more worthwhile and its true to say that in every walk with nature we recieved more than we thought!!!

Last Tuesday felt like the ultimate in Exploring and Conserving for my John Muir Award. I had been invited on board the Lochrin Belle, a purple canal barge belonging to ReUnion, to help their volunteers learn how to record wildlife during their trips along the Union Canal. I am amazed at the difference a few metres can make in perspective – being on the boat instead of on the towpath cast a whole different view on route 75. Being slightly removed let me see how busy the route became as a sunny lunchtime approached, and of course brought us closer to the birds on the far bank – moorhens starting to nest, mallards dabbling and songbirds in the trees at the bottom of canal-side gardens. We made close to 50 records into iRecord during the trip – magpie, robin, bluetit, wren, great tit, woodpigeon, blackbird – and the staff & volunteers of both ReUnion and All Aboard are going to carry on recording. I got a chance to steer too, but maybe the less said about that the better….

Discovering - Agglestone Rock, Chapmans Pool and St Aldhelms Head, Durdel Door and Knoll Beach.

Discovering - Corfe Castle, Holton Lee Nature Reserve and Old Harry Rocks.

The Elderbank Explorers had a successful litter picking session and discussion about caring for the environment. Big THANK YOU goes out to Jean from the Irvine Clean Up Crew who inspired the young people to gather 14 bags of rubbish and interesting facts were learned about waste management. The Young people are currently learning about the environment with the Family Learning Team during the Family John Muir Award sessions at Elderbank Primary and then doing home tasks with their own family to achieve the Discovery Award. GO EXPLORERS!!!

It’s only been in recent years that I’ve come to know ravens, and for no good reason, their size and croaking call gives me the heebie-jeebies. When I solo-walked the West Island Way in 2020, I very nearly lost my bottle when ravens flew over calling just as I was about to plunge into the dark opening of a thick isolated conifer forest. So, when I encountered a couple of ravens on route 78 in Argyll last week, I thought it was about time I learnt something more positive about them for my Award. But, reading up on them, much of the folklore connected with them is of death and darkness and the underworld. The collective noun is an ‘unkindness’. The Edgar Allan Poe poem ‘The Raven’ which always pops into my head when I see them, is all about grief and madness and hopelessness. My favourite bird book describes them as ‘angular and domineering’. This isn’t helping. Luckily the internet is awash with other examples of ravens showing their intelligence and creativity, solving puzzles, speaking, singing, being playful. It reminds me that I’ve seen them tuck their wings and spin upside down while flying too, and is also a nudge to read a book that I have been meaning to for years – Corvus: A Life with Birds by Esther Woolfson. Edgar Allan Poe noted “this ebony bird [is] beguiling my sad fancy into smiling” – it’s probably time for me to let it do the same. Image: John Tenniel, 1858 (https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/)