The Kids are Taking Over!

Welcome to RSPB Conwy Wildlife Explorers group’s first Blog – we hope you will enjoy reading this.

Our group meets the first Saturday of each month at the Reserve. We are a group of young people aged from eight up to teenagers, who love being outside and getting our hands dirty – and luckily we don’t mind getting wet.

Over the next few months, after our monthly meetings, we will be keeping you up to date with the projects and activities that we’ve been working on.

Recently the group applied for some trees that were being given out by Coed Cadw/The Woodland Trust to commemorate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Our application was accepted, and last week we received the 60 hedging plants, enough to make small hedge. The plants are native species, such as hawthorn, that are brilliant for wildlife. We were very careful to check that there were no Ash trees among the plants we received because of the concerns about ‘Ash die-back’ fungus.  Obviously, the Woodland Trust know what they’re doing, but we just had to make sure we didn’t bring anything harmful onto the reserve.

So, on a weekend in November, we planted the hedge. We split the team into three groups as there were 24 of us (our group keeps growing!), each equipped with a volunteer to supervise – we get to work with real tools, and yes, of course, we have to have a safety talk! We collected woodchip to mark the planting area, cut stakes to support the saplings and then dug in the plants. Just to add to the fun, it started raining !

We planted the hedge behind the Mini-Maes area, just behind Tegi, the new dragon. The hedge is still quite small, but in the long-term it will be a place we can go to, and we will be able to feel proud to have planted such a significant part of the reserve (I know I will!).

Our parents came down to see our finished handiwork at the end of the session, and weren’t surprised at all to see that we were soaking wet and covered in mud, just a typical Wildlife Explorers meeting really!

Luca Carpena, aged 15