Drumuir 21

Nature Day – ‘Bioblitz’

21 July 2012

The Nature Day was held on July 1st 2012 and facilitated by Drummuir 21, a Scottish registered charity and environmental group who teamed up with North East Scotland Biodiversity, to hold a ‘bioblitz.’  This is where professional ecologists, and environmentalists, make recordings of the flora and fauna in a specific area.
On this occasion we turned the all abilities path from Drummuir station, through the walled garden and Lochpark into a giant outdoor classroom. There were many activities beside the recordings to engage visitors of all ages such as bushskills, guided walks, eco art, pond dipping and electro fishing, it was active, educational and a lot of fun, we achieved 280 recordings in all!
I am an Art teacher at Speyside High School and secretary of Drummuir 21. It’s good to have access and opportunity to participate in several projects like this a year and its always great to involve the pupils and local community.

Past projects include a beautiful meadow maze at the walled garden, St Fumacs Den and fairy dwellings. This year the Speyside film club were commissioned to make a documentary and students were roped in to help make a geodesic dome.  

Interestingly the idea for a geodesic dome has been burning away quite a while, I attended a Creative Education Inset day at the Findhorn foundation in 2007 where we made geodesic forms, weaving found materials, grasses, leaves, sticks etc. onto triangular frames.