The Safari saw the weather coming in over the sea and wisely bottled out of a Patch 2 watch. We made a brew instead and listened to the heavy rain bouncing off the window, yep we made the right decision!
No session at lunchtime cos we were off to school again to take another class to explore the nature reserve.
Like the others the other day several of this group had brand new wellies bought especially for today's event - can't believe that's the way things are in this day and age.
The gaggle shot off in all directions, enjoying the mud as kids should, and like the others were to over-excited to find anything at first but they soon started to examine the environment more thoroughly.
It didn't take long for the first smiling face to come running up with a pot of something saying "What's this mister?"
We had caterpillars, various millipedes, worms, slugs, snails and the House Sparrows were still giving the 'musical' accompaniment from the depths of the big Blackthorn thicket.
The class's teacher was kept busy taking pics of all their finds to be put on iSpot tomorrow and work through their keys we've given them.
Moving from the shortish but tussocky field to the longer grass and more rushy field it wasn't long before one of the pairs started making yeucchhh type noises - they'd found the wax cells of the Bumble Bee's nest and weren't at all sure what it was - didn't stop them picking bits of it up though. It was a bit more defunct than the other day but they pulled up a couple of cells that still had full grown bees sealed into them...a small black/dark solitary bee which were very difficult to extract without damaging them...must try harder next time (we've still got another class to do later next week).
What a great afternoon and the rancid weather kept away allowing us to work in pleasant sunshine...always makes events like this a bit easier.
We learned this morning that by this time tomorrow we could well be under the very real threat of redundancy. If the worst should happen this is the part of the job we'd miss the most. Can there possibly be anything more important than teaching youngsters about their environment after all they're the ones that have to live in the mess we're leaving them - - there is no Plan(et) B!
Where to next? Weather permitting Patch 2 will get a bit a look at.
In the meantime let us know who's potting what in your outback.
2 comments:
Hope the redundancy plan doesn`t take off, Dave (or should that be.."Mister").
You`re doing a real fine job in getting our natural world across to the young uns.
Good luck on dodging the redundancies Davyman .
If the worst happens, at least there'll be more safari time :-)
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