Category: Club Wild

Have you ever felt the sharp sting and unpleasant tingle of the common nettle Urtica dioca. Have you searched for dock leaves to ease the pain? This week Club Wild took revenge by cooking some nettle leaves in a tasty soup full of vitamins.

Spring brings lots of wild foods as shoots spring from the ground and buds open. We tasted wild garlic leaves and flowers which SJ picked at the country park as they are also abundant at this time of year.

The young leaves of nettles are better for soup than the older ones . They are, however, no less potent so we made sure and took some sturdy gloves and scissors and a trug to carry our pickings.

To make our soup we used half a carrier bag of young fresh nettle leaves, a large finely chopped onion, 1 litre of vegetable or chicken stock, a large potato and 50g of butter. First we melted the butter in a pan and fried the onion on a lowish heat for 5-7 minutes until softened. Next chop the potato into chunks and add to the pan pouring in the stock. Once the root veg is soft (after about 15 minutes) we added our thoroughly washed young nettle leaves and simmered for five minutes. We took the pan off the heat and used a hand blender to puree the soup. You could add wild garlic leaves at the same time as the nettles.

The soup is an amazing green colour and most of us loved it

. We also learned about how good nettles are for butterflies with peacock, small tortoiseshell and red admiral caterpillars liking nettles best.

Club Wild, Miss Young, Mrs Szawlowska  and Sarah-Jane

This week we started work on our big bug city. It will have hotels, apartment blocks and houses.. free accommodation for all mini beasts.

We went out and about to collect materials to furnish all the rooms. Look how much we gathered! The long stems of the cow parsley are hollow so they will provide homes for solitary bees. Twigs and sticks will offer lodgings for ground beetles and dried grass will be nice and cosy for lacewings.

Check in on our bug city contruction progress next week as we decorate the rooms and find the ideal place in the playground for all the mini beasts to live.

Club Wild, Mrs Young and Sarah-Jane

This week, Club Wild was out and about looking for clues that Mother Nature leaves to tell us that spring is on the way!

We looked for snowdrops, the earliest bulbs to flower, and found bluebell shoots which pop up early to make the most of the light before the trees leaf above. We listened to all the different  bird songs and watched nests to see if the birds were busy building.

Over at the golf course pond we saw coots on their nests, and although maybe slightly early, we still looked for balls of jelly or frogspawn in the pond and ditches.

In the woodland we found bright yellow and purple catkins of hazel and alder trees. These floppy flowers are sometimes called lamb’s tails. We learnt that these trees, like silver birch flower before their leaves come. Their flowers are beautiful and also very good for early bees.

The children found hazelnut shells under the hazel trees that had been eaten by wood mice who nibbled a small hole in the shell and by squirrels who chopped them in half. On the way back to school Lachlan and Lucas found a pellet which was full of fur. Maybe it had been deposited by an owl or another bird of prey flying round school.

What an exciting time Spring is for all the plants and animals and for us Nature Detectives!

Sarah-Jane, Mrs Young & Club Wild

After listening to all the beautiful bird music during the Schools Bird watch, we know that spring is on the way. Last week Club Wild made nesting bundles, made of simple building materials, hoping to encourage birds to set up home nearby.

First we collected forked sticks, then mixed together materials including dry grass, straw, wool, thread, dog hair and sheep wool. We wrapped these around the sticks and secured with twine. We hung these in up in the trees. We can’t wait to see nests soon, maybe the birds will have chosen our bright orange and green wool or the fluffy dog hair.

This week we thought about why birds build nest (for shelter, to lay their eggs and raise their young) and how different birds build different types of nests. We also learned that it is becoming more difficult for birds to find good places to build nests as areas are developed for houses and gardens are tidied. We can give the birds a helping hand by putting up nest boxes around the school grounds. We put up two different types, one with a small hole for the smaller birds like blue tits, great tits and sparrows and one with an open end which robins like. We hope that everyone in the school will keep an eye on the bird boxes to see if anyone moves in.

Cheers,

Sarah-Jane

This week at club wild we have been making bird feeders out of a variety of different shaped plastic bottles. These will keep the seed dry and they look fantastic.

We also made fat cake for the birds. Here is our quick and easy ‘Club Wild – Bird Fat Cake’ recipe:

Ingredients
Vegetable or beef suet
Porridge oats
Any of the following – bird seed, meal worms, bird nuts, ground nuts, hard cheese
Moulds – yoghurt pots or other plastic tubs, coconut shells, pine cones
String tied to the mould

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl until they are bound together. The warmth of our hands made the fat squidgy and sticky. Spoon the mixture into the mould and press it down.

By providing food and water for the birds we are helping them survive the winter. Hopefully we will attract more birds to the school grounds where we can watch and learn more about them.

Cheers
Sarah-Jane