Verona Strauss.comjust because life is fun! …

Ashleworth Ham

On Saturday I went to Ashleworth Ham to go bird spotting. A ham is an area of low lying water. Ashleworth ham is a Site of Special Scientific Interest because it is one of three sites in the area where waterfowl birds come for the winter.

We waited in a hide with our binoculars to look at the birds. We saw Canada Geese, Widgeons, pintail, mallards and shovelers.

We went to an outside hide as well and went behind a wooden wall with gaps in it. I saw a robin just 5 yards away which I fed some seeds to. He nearly hopped up onto one of our hands.

One of our teachers bought a telescope which we could look through to get a close look at the birds.

We also raised some money for the Wildlife Trust to sponsor a bird in the Gloucestershire bird atlas.

I enjoyed going and learning about pintails because I had never seen one before.

A pintail, like the ones we saw

Building dens at playrangers

Throughout the holiday, playrangers is still going on. But instead of 4pm-6pm it is 10am-4pm

This week was den building and fire lighting but we didn’t do fire lighting, which was a bit surprising.

Den building did happen and 3 dens were built. I found an old one that had been made before so I used it. I slashed back nettles and brambles so that I could get in.

Then I added a doorstep from fern and nettles,  I made a toilet which was a dirty plastic bag hung on two branches, my friend made a washing line from a branch. There were two entrances to my den which is useful in case one grows over completely.

The other den was made from hazel sticks; its sticks were across two branches and had leaves on. On one side there was also sticks across it and a little entrance to get through. It was quite good; it was definately windproof and is nearly completely rain proof from all the trees.

My potatoes from the potato council are growing really well.

This week it was time to earth them up. The Rocket look much stronger and healthier than the Vale Emerald. The vale emerald look a bit yellow and are smaller.

Mummy looked up yellow leaves in her vegetable book, but we couldn’t work out why they were yellow. Perhaps they are not very happy. Mummy thinks they might need something like nitrogen.

I should be eating my first radishes in a weeks time. I can just see the red globe poking out from the earth. My sweetcorn and cucumbers are growing well. I haven’t planted my cress yet.

I have some tiny mint leaves just appearing and I’m sharing the peas with Mummy. There are some tiny shoots, but not many. Our soil is very hard - it is clay, and full of weeds, so it’s quite hard to grow things because we don’t like to use nasty chemicals.