Friday 28th February 2025
Spring is on its way! We started our nature club session with our usual observations and I set the children on a mission to locate the wildlife camera. We started off in the nature area and enjoyed just gazing into the pond watching the snails drifting. All around the stones of the pond, we could see some beautiful silvergreen bryum moss. We also noticed that the bird feeders all needed replenishing- our fat balls had gone! Whilst, the pond would be an excellent place to spot wildlife, they decided on the forest school area, but if it doesn’t work we will relocate it! The children were really observant in the forest school. Scanning the floor, they found a conker that had been eaten( probably by a squirrel, but they are going to research this). Then, another child spotted a huge spoil of freshly dug earth. They discussed what could have made it and one of them pointed out that it clearly came out of one of the badger setts. There are lots of possible reasons for this, especially since February is the month when badgers always have their young. Everyone noticed all the mushrooms which had sprung up over half –term. They are toxic (Tubariaceae) to many animals and humans, but something had nibbled around the edges. Finally, one of the children found a number of tiny nuts near to one of the setts. It is unusual to find nuts in February, unless an animal has stored them away for the winter. We have no idea what they are yet ( they looked like beech nuts to me), but again, one of the children is going to research this. I then pointed out the number of latrines where the badgers go to the toilet! We ended up talking about badger poo, which can vary enormously according to what they eat and how to distinguish it from fox poo. They all noticed its smell, which is quite fruity rather than musky like a fox and not at all unpleasant. These latrines do not tell us how many badgers there are and they are used to mark out their territory, but they were fresh, which shows that along with the spoil heap, the badgers are very active. We finished the session by starting a guided deep well of time meditation in which the children shut their eyes, felt the sun on their faces and were guided back 50 million years in the Earth’s history-more of this next time. They loved it and one of them started telling me about the giant sloths which used to roam our planet. Humans have always looked forward to the spring and the ancient Britons worshipped the Goddess Brigantia who was associated with the Celtic festival of Imbolic on the 2nd February. She had as her symbol, the badger, as it was seen as a sign of new life emerging from beneath the earth in the spring halfway between the winter solstice and the summer equinox.