Wild!

I’ve signed up to 30 Days Wild and I’m loving it!

The Wildlife Trust (and their independent county charities) are encouraging people to do something each day that is ‘wild’ – that is, involved in nature.  They give plenty of examples on their website of activities that participants can get involved in, and when people sign up to the challenge they receive quite a cute pack containing a wall chart, stickers, seeds, a booklet and other information.  The Wildlife Trust stresses that each ‘wild’ activity doesn’t have to be long – but give examples of having meetings outside, watching wildlife webcams, walking home through the park, building a hedgehog highway or bug hotel as examples.

I signed up and received my pack in the post and started planning all the activities I could do with my toddler.  So far we’ve planted seeds, been to the woods, looked at trees in the park and even saved some daisies from getting mowed!  We’ve seen goldfinches, jays, yellow butterflies and the Big Bad Mouse, and have investigated what hitting trees with a stick sounds like.  We’ve managed to avoid falling in ponds, angry geese and getting stung by stinging nettles (so far… but there is the rest of the month to go).

In the next few days we are going to smell some flowers, feed the birds, watch a webcam, go on a scavenger hunt at the park and collect rocks on the beach.

This is a brilliantly simple awareness raising campaign from the Wildlife Trusts.  As well as encouraging people to visit their local Wildlife Trust centre, they are using the campaign to record how spending time in nature can have a positive impact on people’s health and wellbeing (I was asked to complete a survey at the start of the 30 days, and this will be completed at the end to track any changes in mental wellbeing).

Although we’re nearly halfway through June, their website tells me that it’s not too late to take part!  So why not sign up and join us?  Link is here.

See you in the woods!