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Louise Moss

Good morning everyone!

How are you today?

We spent last night in natures home! Last night we slept on the reserve, celebrating the RSPB's Big Wild Sleepout.

 

We had been getting ready throughout the day -
 

40 brave adventurers (there was about 60 of us with the staff and volunteers too) met at 7pm at the visitor centre. Andrew (Site Manager) and Nicole (Warden) had a plan - between 60 of us, thats a lot of stuff...
So they came up with a brilliant idea to transport all our camping gear around the site, while we wandered round to our reedbed zone...

 

 During the day artist Jenny Hooper visited to create some amazing land art  - she collected driftwood and materials that had washed up on the banks of the Thames estuary to inform these land art pieces.

Can you spot the Peregrine and the Marsh harrier?
  Check out more of her photos here. Big thanks Jenny - we loved your pieces!

After exploring the reserve we set up our tents, ready for the sleepout -

 

After setting everything up we had some different activities to do...

  • A late night walk
    Pat took us out to explore - a highlight was definately the bats, and the amount of moths found on the buddleia bushes!
  • Moth trapping
    It was so good to see the moths - Thanks Jim! We were fascinated by the amount of creatures that come out at night.
  • Author Neil Ansell told stories from his latest book - Deer Island. Neil is an award-winning freelance journalist and writer. He spent seven years with the BBC as a community affairs specialist, working predominantly in television but also in radio, and working in both news and current affairs as researcher, assistant producer and producer. He told us about his experiences of camping out, and nature - from the streets of London to his taking occasional trips to the Isle of Jura, off the west coast of Scotland, to seek solace and isolation in the landscape.

    Thank you so much to Neil, we really enjoyed it! Check out his new book Deer Island!
  • And pond dipping
     Pond dipping in the dark was quite fun! Emma went and caught some creatures, and we had a look at them using torches! Great fun!

 

After exploring and seeing all  the different night time creatures we all headed to our tents...

Pat lead a 5am walk for those who wanted to see the reserve waking to a new day (I didn't get up that early!). Talking of early - big thanks to our Warden, Nicole. She got up at 4am and walked back to the Visitor Centre on her own, in the dark to make sure that the ovens were turned on for our breakfast!

I hope everyone slept well! I know we did - although there was some snores coming from certain RSPB staff members that shall remain nameless!

 

 

 

After packing up the tents and packing the trailer up again -

 From left to right - Martin, Andrew, and a sleep deprived Emma start collecting all our gear...


 Site Manager Andrew... boys and their toys eh?

 

 

After a couple of group shots:

 

We headed back in the direction of the yummy cooked breakfast (which was greatly appreciated)...

 

Isabel (who is 7) said the  Big Wild Sleepout "was brilliant! I saw a bat last night!" We enjoyed it, and we hope that you did too!

 

Thank you to everyone that came along - it's the first time we've done this event, so we hope you had a great time!

Louise