History: In 2009 I discovered the conservation area in Mayfield primary school, a secret wooded garden locked and hardly used with a leaky pond. I fell in love at once and asked if I could start bringing it back into use. The school welcomed my enthusiasm. I successfully applied for a grant from The Radley Trust and we had a new pond created by Wonderlandscapes firm, and my family and helpers, as well as a new shed for storage.
I began volunteering at Mayfield school in 2010-11 during the Friday afternoon Golden Time sessions. I did this for a few years until the day of golden time changed and as I worked as therapist in care homes on that new day I could not longer volunteer. So I asked the children and parents and they said they would love the club to continue and were happy to pay to attend it as an official lunch time and after school club. Over the next years I built up the club so that I ran five times a week over three lunchtimes and 2 after school times.
The nature reserve had many trees including Silver birch, many Blackthorn, a lovely field Maple, Elder, Ash, Alder, butterfly bush, Rowan, Golden plum and Dog wood among others. In the centre was a large pond with a great number of frogs and both sorts of newts, smooth and the protected species of great crested. There are two benches for working at, a hide for sitting in and storing things in and small paths leading around the reserve. The main plants are nettles and blackberry brambles with teasels, lemon balm, wood violets and a few primroses and other spring bulbs.
When covid hit in 2020 I needed to stop going into the school as a self employed person I was not allowed entry. I moved the class on line for a couple of terms and had a lovely eco storytelling session for a while too. I started back after the first lock down only to stop again. After the next lockdown Mayfield decided to employ a full time forest school TA. It felt the right time to move on to other callings and I was very busy with CRRC Cambridge Refugee Resettlement Campaign.
In 2019 I became interested in an unused wild space at Chesterton Community college called The Dip.
The Dip Nature Reserve is situated on the grounds of Chesterton Community College close to Chesterton Sports Centre. It is almost 170m long and of varying width between 8m to 20m. It is largely made up of well established trees including white poplar, bird cherry, sycamore, oak, elder, walnut and maples. There are two clear sections to the dip, an upper part that is flat and more open to sunlight where the shed, vegetable patches and small pond exist; followed by a long adjoining path, at the end of which are steps leading down to the dipped part which is lower lying with more dense tree coverage. Toward the far end lives a lone badger and a lone fox, we deduce, cohabiting a shared den/sett! We have also caught muntjac deer on the wildlife camera along with a range of birds and cheeky squirrels. The area is peaceful with the sound of the white poplar leaves blowing in the wind, a wide variety of bird calls including Blackcap, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Robins, Wrens, Tits and Pigeons. The trees provide welcome cover and shade and the sawn logs are places to sit and enjoy the peace and quiet surrounded by the many sounds of nature within this urban setting. We believe this is, and could be even more, a place of sanctuary, providing a safe and quiet space for pupils who might really need or just want to experience directly and thus benefit from, in terms of their mental health and/or their interest in the natural world.
In September 2019 we received a grant for £625 from the CCC PTA .
Timeline:
Autumn 2019 - Two public action days to pick up litter and assess the area.
November 2019 - School pupils involved in offering their ideas for how to evolve the Dip. Zoe Chamberlain and an Architect firm took this forward.
Nature Explorer Club in January 2020 began its weekly sessions after school on Wednesday 3-4.30pm. It went online for one term during one of the lock downs and paused for the other. For a while it ran monthly and now once again weekly.
March 2020: Purchased an outdoor storage box and lock, 3 garden forks, 2 spades and one shovel, native bluebell bulbs, pond dipping white trays from NHBS, wildlife identification charts, garden loppers and garden hatchet pruners x 3.
Feb 2021 - A free shed was sourced and erected by CCC site crew, and roofing felt bought with PTA money and put on by site crew. One water butt was assembled and reclaimed guttering used to connect them.
March 2021- Two oak sleepers were bought and replaced the rotten ones at the top of the steps in the middle of the site to make the steps safer. We also put in a small pond (unused plastic pond base found on site) at the upper, sunny, end of the Dip. Although it is fairly small, any additional area of freshwater improves biodiversity and we have found a common newt in the Dip.
April 2021: Paul Gilliver started using the dip for the “Grow in a Row” vegetable growing for giving to the Food Bank. Raised beds were assembled and used over the growing season.
May 2021. Spent £120 at NHBS on 10 x clear plastic magnifying glasses, sweep net, bug viewer, 10 bug pots, 13 FSC guides, Bloomsbury Guide to Wildlife 2nd. On very sunny days it was common to see honey bees drinking from the new pond. Tree bumblebees, a relative newcomer to the UK, made their home in one of the bird nest boxes high up in the woods.
June 2021 we borrowed the City Council Community moth trap to see what moths could be found in the Dip. The weather was rather rainy but nevertheless we caught a good number including several Bee moths and a Figure of Eighty. In addition, we had a ‘moth trap intruder’ - a large dragonfly!
Sept 2021: A visit from Lorraine, a badger expert from the South East Cambs Badger Group. www.cambsbadgers.co.uk who recorded the existence of an active badger sett. We knew there was a badger on site thanks to a trail camera from one of the children, which has also recorded a number of foxes and a muntjac deer.
We have also used the sweep net on the vegetation and emptied its contents onto a big white sheet. Then the children identified the various creatures we had caught - a variety of invertebrates such as spiders, flies, grasshoppers, ladybirds and many more. The magnifying glasses, specimen pots and ID guides we had came in very useful.
Other activities have included, making herbal nettle tea on a kelly kettle, making elderflower cordial and elderberry syrup for taking home. Making nettle cordage and willow trays, plant and insect recording and monitoring, worm identification, bird watching, bird feeder making, nature games, planting trees, shrubs and seeds.
Oct 2021 -Funding received from Cambridge Water Pebble Fund for the preparation and planting of wildflower verges outside the Dip. £250 to spend on the verges and signage. In late October the children scarified the car park verge next to the Dip and sowed a mix of annual, perennial and Yellow Rattle seeds. In the summer the children had looked at the existing species and listed Oxeye daisy, plantain, yarrow, dandelion, daisy, nettles, thistles, forget me not, dovefoot/cranesbill, dead nettles, alkanet, chickweed, knotted parsley and mullein. The new seeds will increase biodiversity even more and the Yellow rattle will parasitise the grass, benefitting the flowers.
Oct 2021: Planting crocus bulbs with school pupils and staff.
Nov 2021: Visit from Peter from Cambridgeshire Mammal Society who help set up small mammal traps. None were caught but peak season for small mammals is in the summer so Peter agreed to come back again. We know from stashes of eaten cherry stones that there are small mammals here. We also dissected owl pellets and Peter was amazed to see the limb of a mole in one - quite a rare discovery!
Nature Explorers has featured in this Natural History Cambridge newsletter:
http://www.nathistcam.org.uk/november-2021-sightings/
Amy Ellis runs the club with Ben Greig, both Chesterton parents. Ben Greig is also involved with the voluntary group ‘On the Verge Cambridge’ (www.onthevergecambridge.org.uk) as well as ‘Pesticide-Free Cambridge’(see https://www.pesticidefreecambridge.org/schools-campaign) . We have been in discussion with the school about reducing and limiting their use of pesticides on the verges and in the dip, and the school has been very supportive. When the County Council had some trees felled the stumps were painted blue to indicate they had been sprayed with Glyphosate herbicide (to kill off the stump). We raised this and the council had the contractors return to remove the affected sections of the tree stumps.
March 2022
The wild flower verges have remained un-mowed and several yellow rattle flowers have grown. Other biodiversity includes: Vetches, red and campion, oxeye daisy, burdock, alkanet, cow parsley, ribwort plantain, common daisy, prickly Ox tongue, yarrow, dock, creeping buttercup. We have found roving beetles and damselflies, four smooth newts and smaller pond life. The return of a mammal expert form Cambridgeshire Mammal Group led to the humane trapping, weighing and releasing of 6 healthy woodmice.
Resources:
https://teach.ocr.org.uk/gcse-natural-history-consultation-faqs
The Woodland Trust - kids activities:
"http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/EN/LEARNING-KIDS/Pages/children.aspx#.UR0HG0LaafU"
The Wildlife Trust
"http://www.wildlifetrusts.org"
Journeys in the spirit - Quaker kids resources
"http://www.quaker.org.uk/journeyschildren"