30 Days Wild in June : Update

I'm very aware that I didn't blog during the last week of the Wildlife Trust's 30 Days Wild in June challenge, this was because life was very busy and I just didn't have the time to sit down and write.

As a family we all very much enjoyed the daily focus on wildlife around us that this challenge brought and I'm pleased to say that it has continued.

I have always enjoyed any brief moments of respite spent in nature away from the busyness of everyday life and have developed a deeper knowledge and wider appreciation of that which surrounds me. We are very lucky that we live in a rural area and so get to see a very wide variety of animals ranging from deer and kestrels through to water shrews and crickets.

My particular focus ended up being on the wide variety of bees visiting our garden - until we took up this challenge I had no idea that there were so many and I am gratified to know that our attempts to ensure we have wild areas to attract wildlife (with a particular focus on bees and butterflies) have worked.

Unfortunately, due to ill health, we did not manage to complete our project to build a bug hotel in June, however we are moving forward with it and hope to have it finished by autumn.

Here are a few more photos of what we got up to during the challenge:

Bird's nest made by June

Summer Meadow made by June & December and their fellow Nature Detectives as a backdrop for their butterflies

June's beautiful butterfly

Shield bug in one of the wild areas of our garden

Home Ed Friday

Home Ed rocks! It wasn't yet 11am and we'd already covered several lessons:

P.E./Gymnastics : Trampolining in the garden - this week we were given a very large trampoline by our next door neighbours (who are filling the space it took up with a swimming pool!), so the girls are practising for their upcoming end of term Trampolining Class display.

English Literature : December read another couple of chapters of The Borrowers Afield in the garden. Then we talked about the characters and how they differed from those in the film 'Arietty'.

Natural History : June discovered two dead Water Shrews under/near the trampoline. She decided that the flies were on one rather than the other because it had blood coming out of it's nose (poor thing) and also commented that it was important that the flies were there, as, "They need to eat it to break it down for the life cycle". She then went and got her magnifying glass to examine them properly. Both girls were fascinated by the animal's tiny claws and how long their snouts were. There was some discussion as to whether to leave the Shrews out for their killers to devour, however it was decided that in this hot weather it would be more sensible to bury them.

Burial Practices : We talked about ways of burying dead bodies and December  talked about Egyptian mummification. A shroud was made (out of kitchen towel) and then December dug a grave under a geranium (Daddy helped as the ground is fairly hard right now). June gently placed the Shrews in their grave and then their Daddy filled it in, before June  placed a pretty stone with mica on top, to mark the spot.

Then they came in for an ice lolly each (after first washing their hands!).