I have to admit that on Sunday morning, I was feeling a bit grumpy and stressed and was cursing my community mindedness. I volunteer for our Shetland RSPB Wildlife Explorer Group and we were to meet in the afternoon. Sharon and I had been collecting well-rotted pony poo, and I'd managed to stomp it into my house, I'd thorns in my hand from digging up my rose bushes and I was trying to muster some enthusiasm. We were meeting at the Sandwick Allotments where we intended to make a start on our wildlife corner - planting a few trees and doing a bug hunt. To be honest, us leaders didn't think we would make that much progress and we would start small and hope to do more in the future.
Well, we were all quite overwhelmed with the response we had from our appeals for help!
There were Shetland Conservation Volunteers armed with shovels, Pete the RSPB Shetland area manager with his tools, children with their parents, a dad without his daughters (they were off with Mum for a Mother's Day walk), Dave Okill (our local BTO rep) with his dibber, Maurice from the Shetland Times and committee members of the Shetland Bird Club donated us 100 trees! Amazingly, in less than two hours, we got all our trees and bulbs planted, prepared the ground for a wildflower "meadow", dug the shape of a pond and created some rock and wood piles!! A heartfelt thanks goes to everyone who helped.
The bughunt didn't quite work out. It was a bit too cold for creepy crawlies to be creeping and crawling, and also a bit too cold for children to be comfortably still for any length of time. There was one tiny ground beetle discovered, a few woodlice, a couple of beetle larvaes, quite a few slumbering slugs and many many earthworms. One of the children who turned up had been looking forwards to "Worm Day" for some time, and wasn't disappointed. I don't know what they put in the soil in Sandwick, but I don't think I've ever seen such massive worms!
For our corner, we chose cotoneaster, Rosa rugosa, butterfly bush, flowering currant, whitebeam, syacmore and rowan. These should be good for birds and invertebrates. They should be good for the allotmenteers too, attracting pollenating insects and providing a bit of shelter from our wild Shetland winds. It is our hope that our WEX children observe and attend to the wildlife corner for years to come (maybe returning with their own children!!). Ideas can also be transferred to the home too. Over time, we'll do more bug hunts, to see how our wee wildlife corner has benefitted biodiversity.
It was muddy, cold, windy, and at one point very very wet. However, I went home feeling warm inside thanks to the kindness of the grown ups and from seeing the glee of children with wiggly worms.
Thanks for reading, cheers eenoo!
Helen