The Outdoor Hour

We've seen loads of moss and lichen in our move from Scotland to England. A selection of them are below. I think we've kind of exhausted our interest in them now though! Time to move on... but I'm sure we'll see and take note of them whenever they crop up (my new lawn seems to be 90% moss, so can't get away from it really!!). It's been really good to have a nature 'focus' during the upheaval of the move.

Moss on the path... ours at our new house!

Wow, think this is amazing... found this up on Dartmoor, Devon

So, what to next? Well, I think we will maybe jump around the challenges a bit now - that's the good thing about starting the project nearly a year after everyone else! We've covered Challenge 6 on collections quite a lot in the past year... the kids are always keen to pick up things, from sticks and feathers, to stones and shells, and any other interesting items lying around whether to do with nature or not! Our Bubbles is a bit of a magpie!

We may make our own field guides some time, as per Challenge 7. It would be nice to have our own personal ones... maybe we'll do one of our garden birds too - we have so few at the moment (I guess it takes the birds a while to get used to new feeders if they've not been encouraged into a garden before), and not so much variety as back in Rosewell. So far we have only seen 2 fat wood Pigeons, 2 Bluetits, 2 Robins, 4 Dunnocks, a Song Thrush and, on the one occasion, a Goldcrest (that was very exciting for me!)... far cry from the Chaffinchs, Sparrows, Greenfinches, Tits - Blue, Coal and Great, Collared Doves, Yellowhammer, Starlings, Rooks, Magpies, Robin and Wren that we had in our old house! Still, it's early days yet. Though the shelves are bursting with bought guides! I picked up a great one today at the Wyre Forest Visitors Centre called The Tree Name Trail (these trail guides are great for the kids), and I hope it will help us to identify all the trees around us here... because there really are an awful lot of trees around for a town!

Challenge 8 has reminded me that I found our large magnifying glasses AND our field microscope the other day... so I'm very excited to remember that, and will have to pack them in our bag when we go out walking in the afternoons. It's amazing how something overlooked before (eg a blade of grass) can suddenly take on a new dimension when looked at even closer!

We love picnics... so are eagerly awaiting it being a little warmer so we can comfortably sit outside with our food! We'll have no problem enjoying challenge 10 at various times over the warmer months!

So, I think that leads me to Challenge 9 (One Small Square) and Challenge 11 (Spring Tree Study) to start on at the moment. Challange 9 should go down well with the kids I think... not sure if we'll choose a spot in our garden (which appears very mundane, but you just never know!) or out at the park (approx 26 acres to choose from!)!. I have always fancied the idea of photographing an area of nature at each of the different seasons... but never got round to it, so here's the opportunity! Trees is a good one... there's an abundance of them around us here! In fact, the reason I purchased the trail guide today is that our local park has a plethora of different trees that I feel compelled to get to grips with! And after this... I'm hard pressed to know whether to carry on with Challenge 12 and Garden Flowers, or jump to the Tree section! We'll see...