Hello, I'm Sarah-Jayne Forster, the Project Officer for Giving Nature a Home in Glasgow. My job is certainly exciting: last week, myself and some of the rest of the team were "Animal Athletes" at the newly refurbished Kelvingrove Bandstand, as part of Festival 2014. It was brilliant to be involved with the Commonwealth Games celebrations, and there was an incredibly exciting vibe around as Glasgow came alive!
The party atmosphere in the city meant that we had over a hundred excited children waiting as we started the event. We began by learning about some of the fastest animals from the Commonwealth- with a little help from Ollie the ostrich- and then brought things right back to Glasgow with the story of our own record-breakingly-speedy Kelvingrove peregrine.
After that warm up, we then launched into our Animal Athletics after an expert demonstration from our very own Bolt the Blue tit!
Our mini Athletes took part in the Kangaroo Hop, the Cheetah Sprint, the Penguin Shuffle and the Egg and Spoon. There were several heats before the skilled competitors took part in a final to win the coveted RSPB goody bag. The egg and spoon race definitely proved the most tricky for some of the athletes...
Everyone was a winner however, as we had out own medal making craft to celebrate all of the wonderful children that took part.
Congratulations to all our competitors for such a fantastic event, and we look forward to seeing more excited faces at our Wildlife Garden Festival coming up in September. Look out for the full listing of events on our Giving Nature a Home in Glasgow page!
All photos by Louise Greenhorn