Autumn 2022
We have been very busy since September. We have started our conservation voluntary work at Sholing Valley nature reserve – we had a good explore of the area and started removing the invasive species of Canadian Goldenrod, Virginia Creeper and Japanese Knotweed. We also spent an afternoon cutting back willow to help restore the habitat back to grassland and wild flowers.
We organised a hedgehog talk within our local Home Education community by the Happy Animals Rescue and Rehab organisation, where we got to meet a real life hedge-hog. We also learned about what they eat, how to care for them at this time of year, the importance of hedgehog highways and were donated 2 hedgehog homes by Southampton City Council. We are starting to tell our neighbours about the importance of the hedgehog highways.
We have started our conservation work at Hill View Farm on the border of the South Downs, auditing trees which have died due to the previous 2 years of drought. We will be replacing the dead trees in December. We have also spent some time by badger sets, setting up wildlife cameras and have seen muntjac deer, owls, bats and hares – they run really fast! This week we are planning on starting a year-long audit of their mammals, birds, bats and flowering plants, butterflies, moths, trees and shrubs.
We have also attended some afternoons at Aldermoor Farm learning about their sustainable market garden – we have been feeding their chickens, learning about compost, growing radishes that we’ve planted in their polytunnel and preparing long sticks to make fences at our next visit there.
In between times we have visited Calshot to carry out the Coastal Bird Watch where we spotted a heron and a little Egret, amongst other birds. We also visited the New Forest looking for the pannage pigs. We have also visited the Art Gallery in Lymington where there is an exhibition of Plants, Animals and their habitats before a wonderful afternoon bird spotting at Keyhaven Marshes.
We are looking into the possibility of rewilding sites with native wild-type fruit and vegetables. As well as conservation and habitat reconstruction for insects.
Spring 2022
We are a group of home-educated children who are deeply passionate about the environment, ecology and rewilding.
Over the last year we have completed the DISCOVERY stage of The John Muir Award which focussed on The River Itchen, which we explored from source to mouth and learnt about eutrophication. We worked with a local STEM ambassador to test for nitrate and phosphate levels in the water, learnt about watercress farming, nurdles and picked a lot of litter!
During the EXPLORER stage of our John Muir Award, we spent 6 months in The New Forest. We planted trees at Lepe to help prevent coastal erosion, we observed the controlled burning of the heathland, learnt more about nurdles, ground nesting birds, wading birds and picked up more litter!
For our third and final stage of the John Muir Award we will be focussing on Southampton City, The New Forest and The South Downs. Within Southampton City we have already started work at Monksbrook greenway as a site of interest within the city. We visited there and learnt how to identify and remove the highly invasive Himalyan Balsam plant and will continue this work over the coming weeks and months. We have also strategically placed some small pieces of corrugated iron on the grass there and have already spotted slow worms and lizards, amongst other things.
Some of our plans over the coming months include establishing Hedge Hog highways along our back gardens, Pop-Up Information Stands about what to feed the ducks and swans at Riverside park water testing at Monksbrook to check for pollution there and investigating possibilities around growing wild fruit and vegetables. We are also creating links with Sholing Valley Study Centre and Aldermoor City Farm to learn more skills to use and share.
We would love to inspire other children across Southampton City and share knowledge and skills for them to do similar projects!
Summer 2022
Over the last few months our group has done a whole range of activities, including; building willow fences at Aldermoor community farm, participated in the nurdle clean-up and used a nurdle vacuum cleaner at Chessel Bay Nature Reserve, planting trees, removing invasive species (e.g Canadian goldenrod Virginia creeper and holm oak) and removing shrubland to help encourage wildflower meadows, at Sholing valley nature reserve. We also planted Strawberries, parsnips, wild carrots and wildflowers at Monksbrook Greenway. In addition to this, we designed and built bird nests with natural materials, wild camped with permission on a farm in the South Downs, as well as watered dying trees there what were affected by the drought in June. We have also spent time exploring and surveying Chilworth Manor Nature reserve for wildlife and completed a local survey there for frog and toad spawn. We examined the aftermath of a wildfire in Peartree green and walked the western yar estuary circular walk on the Isle of Wight. We studied the aquatic wildlife at Compton Loch and went on a bison safari at Blean woods where the bison have been reintroduced for the first time in 6,000 years through a rewilding plan. Just last week we were at Aldermoor Community Farm lining a pond that we helped to dig, with natural clay to stop the water from leaving.
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