Places that I Love to Visit #1 Weald and Downland Open Air Museum

Harvest Display in the ground floor of the Market Hall from Titchfield

We have been regular visitors to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum recently. There are so many things to do and see there and, as members, we are able to take part in the majority of special events without extra charge. I have also found it a wonderful place to visit whilst I am recovering from my recent operation as the setting is quite beautiful with level paths through mixed woodland, meadows full of wildflowers and insect life and interesting activities to learn about. As well, there are lots of places to sit and admire the views, a cafe close to hand and easy to access facilities - which are useful when you have limited mobility.

The Twitten next to the house from Walderton

As I walked slowly through one of the meadows admiring the flowers last week, Swifts swooped around me as they chased insects during a break on their way south to Africa. I was able to study them and it seemed to me as though they had a special joy in the way they steeply banked and turned, skimming just above the heads of the flowers as they sought their supper.

Wildflower Meadow

'Young' Old Man's Beard

Hops ready for harvest

 Later, on our way past Bayleaf house, I saw that the rose bush I had photographed just a couple of months ago was now covered in rosehips and, in the fieId the other side of the fence June saw the stable cat curled up asleep in long grass. 

Harvest Moon and the Lunar Eclipse

We (that is myself, my husband and December) have spent much of the past couple of weeks discussing the imminent eclipse of the Moon. 

Today we attended a presentation at the South Downs Planetarium called The Harvest Moon and Tonight's Total Eclipse, which we really enjoyed and found it helpful in preparing us for what to expect.

Shortly after we returned home I took June and December out for a drive to see the Moon as it rose in the twilight and we managed to find a layby to pull into on the outskirts of our village and take a few photos, this one was the clearest I could take with my mobile phone:

It looked much larger to the naked eye than this photo makes it seem and we were all delighted to have managed to see it (clouds are a frequent problem for astronomers in England!). 

December and June went to bed straight after dinner so that they could get a few hours sleep before we went out to view the eclipse. I had planned to have a nap too, however we got caught up in household chores and preparing equipment for our mini-adventure so it didn't seem worth it in the end.

My husband woke the girls up just after 1am and we all dressed in warm clothes and then loaded up the car before setting off to prepare to view the eclipse. At the field we quickly emptied the boot of the car and set everything up - the girls were glad of their hats and gloves as there was a chill breeze. I got the telescope ready and took a few photos with my mobile phone but didn't get any very clear photos of the eclipse because of the breeze on the field causing too much wobble of the telescope. Definitely time to upgrade to a bigger telescope!

This is the best photo I managed to take this morning as the Moon began it's journey into the shadow of the Earth:

This is the photo I took of the fully eclipsed Moon using just my mobile phone:

Whilst waiting for the full eclipse to occur I was thrilled to see a couple of shooting stars, one to the left and the other to the right of the Moon - something I had not expected.  As the Moon moved into the Earth's shadow it began to turn a deep red, except for the very edge at the bottom which was a pale red. When viewed through binoculars or the telescope the colour was much paler than when seen by the naked eye. 

Photo taken by my husband of the Lunar Eclipse 28092015

As I looked around the suddenly very dark night sky I noticed how many more stars I could see than normal; how much brighter they seemed; that I could see the Pleiades very clearly when I looked directly at them (not an easy thing to achieve usually) and that Orion had returned from his summer break!

Photo taken during eclipse by my husband

Photo showing the brighter bottom edge of the Moon, taken by my husband

December and June were very excited about being able to see the Moon through the telescope, however they got cold very quickly even though they were wrapped in blankets and had some hot chocolate to drink. After we heard hooting from an owl followed a series of very sharp barks (which I assumed to be from a fox), June decided that she wanted to go home. She and December were fine with the owl noises but very unnerved by the fox, which was understandable as the noise they make is quite weird if you aren't used to it.

As the Moon was now midway through it's total eclipse we packed up and set off home, absolutely delighted that we had managed to see this special event. When we got home I got a great surprise - as I got out of the car I glanced up and suddenly realised that I could see the Milky Way arching across the sky above me, which was wonderful as I have never seen it before (other than in photos or on film). A brilliant end to a fantastic experience.

Early Autumn in Sussex

In the morning the grass is heavy with dew and spread with a patchwork quilt of spider's webs. Walking down the garden to see if there are any butterflies still on the buddleia is a lesson in how hard spiders work overnight, as their strong invisible webs which are spread between the bushes each side of my route stick to my arms and legs as I pass, leaving me shaking my arms in an impression of a giant trapped fly trying to shake off the sticky line. The air is cold but the sunlight is bright and the sky is blue with the odd fluffy cloud and it promises to be a fine day.

By lunchtime the dew has dried and the air is warm enough for December and June to enjoy leaping in and out of the splash pool at a local park before settling down on the blanket with us to enjoy a picnic lunch. Later, we wander along the seafront in Worthing discovering new places for the girls to play and a lovely little seafront cafe serving the best hot chocolate, gluten free cakes and with great sea views to gaze at.

The light travelling through the late afternoon air has not yet reached that syrupy tone of sepia tint that tells you that Autumn is seeping into Summer, however the hawthorn bushes are already heavy with fruit as are fruit trees and the fields are full of hay bales and pheasants that have escaped the guns of men in tweed in pursuit of sport.

The night is drawing in a little earlier each day and soon the night skies will be brilliant with all sorts of astronomical sights viewable through a much clearer atmosphere than that which is present during Summer months. This will enable my husband and I to take December and June out to explore our Solar System and the Milky Way at a much more reasonable hour than has been possible recently. We have a small telescope and binoculars and have a list of planets, stars and objects that we hope to spot and have found the presentations at the South Downs Planetarium to be most useful in helping us to learn more about the sky at night.

Beautiful Butterflies

Peacock

We have been taking part in the Butterfly Conservation Trust's butterfly count this weekend. This sedentary occupation has suited me perfectly as I am recuperating from an operation a couple of weeks ago and am not very mobile at present.

We were only required to record numbers for 15 minutes at a time, which passed so quickly that I decided to carry on for a few minutes more. After a little while my husband came to tell me that lunch was ready and I was surprised to discover that I had been sitting there for an hour or so.

In our official 15 minutes we saw 6 Peacocks; 15 Large Whites; 1 Comma; 2 Common Blues; 1 Gatekeeper and 2 Red Admirals which we were really pleased with.

Red Admiral

  

Overall I counted 30 Large Whites; 4 Gatekeepers; 3 Commas; 5 Red Admirals; 15 Peacocks and 3 Common Blues. If you would like to take part the count runs until tomorrow (Sunday 9th August) and the website is www.bigbutterflycount.org 

Gatekeeper

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!).

30 Days Wild in June : Days 16 - 23 Summary

Life has been so busy that I have not had much time to spend online, which isn't a bad thing at this time of year. However, it does mean that I am very behind with my blogging for the Wildlife Trust challenge, which is a shame.

Here is a summary of what we have been up to over the last week:

At Nature Detectives today December and June collected leaves in the woods and were very excited when they returned to the activity room as they had seen a deer whilst out and about. Unfortunately no-one was able to get a photo of the deer, but here is an artist's impression by June as well as a photo of some of their leaves ready for pressing.









A hectic day, however June and December spent a couple of hours in the garden playing with their wild animal toys that we got from the local toy library. They really enjoyed making the lions creep through the grass before leaping on their prey!

A day of great excitement, being June's birthday :) We had a busy family day as her party was planned for the next day, however we did all manage to spend some time gazing at the Moon in the clear evening sky, which was lovely :)



























A hectic day full of bouncing children at June's Peter Rabbit themed birthday party! Above is a photo of her birthday cake which I made to fit the theme :)

A wonderful friend (who is a trained Park Ranger) put together a themed co-operative treasure hunt for the children to do around our garden, which involved collecting radishes, strawberries and jigsaw puzzle pieces as well as having to avoid being caught by Mr McGregor! June loved the Mr Rabbit's Journal with a map of our garden in the centre which was made especially for her :)

Woad

Teasel

Flowering Nettle

We had a lovely Summer Solstice, visiting the Wood Show at a local museum. December and June enjoyed having a carriage ride with their Daddy and really admired the beautiful dappled Percheron horses. We spotted some impressively tall flowering nettles as well as woad, teasels, hops and bird's foot trefoil.

Bird's Foot Trefoil

Hop

I spent about half an hour sitting in the sunshine enjoying watching the bees busy on the clover in my front garden. It was very peaceful and I could happily have sat there much longer if I hadn't needed to get on with other things.



June made one of these beautiful butterflies at her Nature Detectives group today.

I've also included a photograph of the bird's nest she made a week ago, which she is very proud of :)