Officially Yorkshire Day is held on 1st August, but here at Fairburn we like to do things a little differently and held the Yorkshire Day celebration on Sunday 31 July. There was so much going on it was hectic and loads of people, young and old alike, came to celebrate our fine county with us on the reserve.
The Discovery Trail became the Yorkshire trail for the day, and people were to find photos of famous Yorkshire folk with accompanying word which eventually made up the Yorkshire saying "See all, hear all, say nowt. Eat all, sup all, pay nowt. And if th’ ivver does owt for nowt then do it for Thissen!" We also got people to match the Yorkshire names to different birds. Do you know what the more common names are for greedy gleds, hover hawks and pyenates? A greedy gled is the traditional Yorkshire name for a red kite, a hover hawk is more commonly called a kestrel, and a pyenate is a magpie.
Visitors also played "traditional" games of "pie and pea", "splat the ferret" and the "flat-cap toss" which proved popular with children and adults, although just proved to me yet again how rubbish my coordination is as I didn't win anything! This was made worse by the fact that a girl no older than 5 splatted the ferret very effectively right after my turn, suggesting it wasn't the game being impossible to win, just my lack of ferret-splatting abilities (just in case you didn't realise, they weren't real ferrets!). We also held a raffle with some great prizes from Cryer and Stott, Blacker Hall Farm Shop, Swillington Organic Farm, Leventhorpe Vineyard, The Kestral pub and Taylors of Harrogate. Well done to the lucky people who won these fab treats!
In the visitor centre we had some great sculpture-making out of recycled materials, and there were lots of butterflied faces about thanks to the face painting in the Kingfisher room. We also had some volunteers doing pond-dipping on the platform, showing people the amazing flora and fauna in the ponds as well as story-telling in the secret woodland. The reserve staff and volunteers also got into the swing of things, shown by Tom, Joe, and Richard below sporting their flatcaps. All in all, a great day had by everyone!