Welcome to the final stretch of my 30 Days Wild Challenge! In this blog I’ll be going through days 21 – 30 of my 30 Days Wild challenge from The Wildlife Trusts. Every year in the month of June we are challenged to do something “wild” to connect with nature. If you haven’t already seen Days 1-5, Days 6-10, Days 11-15 and Days 16 – 20 you can catch up on my blog.
Day 21 of 30 Days Wild – Fly Agaric Embroidery
Day 21 saw me sit down to work on my fly agaric embroidery which I received as part of a Craftpod subscription box in autumn 2020. Having already worked on the stalk, I’m now focusing my efforts to sew the cap whilst trying to blend the embroidery threads. This enchanting design was created by Emillie Ferris and I was so happy when I received it as I’ve been admiring her designs for a little while.
Day 22 of 30 Days Wild – Wildlife Trust Membership
A few months back I took the decision to join the Wildlife Trusts/Scottish Wildlife Trust as a member picking the family membership option. After taking part in this challenge for so many years I wanted to sign up and lend my support to the trusts. Today Robin and I took some to look at the different literature they have sent to us focusing on the magazines aimed at children. Robin enjoyed learning about animals with foodie names and learning about what lives in sea grass!
Day 23 of 30 Days Wild – Garden in Bloom
Sometimes all you need is a simple walk around your garden to get your nature fix. Just take a look at some of the colours! I don’t treasure my garden enough, probably because although we do have some beautiful blooms growing, the garden still needs a lot of work! Fingers crossed next year it’ll be in a better shape 😉 In the meantime enjoy the blooms.
Day 24 of 30 Days Wild – Baby Birds in the Garden
These photos show that you don’t need to go far to enjoy some wildlife. These pics were taken from my living room, sitting on the sofa looking out the window at our blossom tree. A Sparrow mum was busy hoovering up seeds from our grass that she knocked out of our bird feeder, and was feeding it to her baby. Robin enjoyed sitting and watching them too. Very cute to watch ❤️
Day 25 of 30 Days Wild – Soggy Poppies
Day 25 saw us embark a massive road trip down to Norfolk. As we stopped at the Scottish/English border (in the rain), I spotted some poppies growing that looked rather soggy. They still looked beautiful and when I held my phone under the heads I got some abstract images I quite liked. The raindrops on the leaves also look nice!
Day 26 of 30 Days Wild – Meet Slime Mould
Slime mould, what is it?! You’d be mistaken to think it was a fungus (I thought the same). This was one of my fav days, make sure you watch Robin introducing the slime mould before I delve into more info about this mysterious species 😂
Meet Wolf’s Milk Slime Mould. It can be a challenge learning names of new species as Robin shows us 😂 So what is this alien like substance reminiscent of the goo in Ghostbusters?!
🍄 This could easily be mistaken for a fungi, but slime mould is part of its own kingdom, Protista.
✔️ There are more than 900 species of slime moulds in the world.
🚶♀️They move, yes you read that right, they move! You’re not likely to see it as they are super slow, but these guys move to find food!
🌳 They feed on microorganism on dead plant material such as bacteria, yeasts and fungi and help with decomposition.
🪥Watch to the end to see what comes out of these, the hint is in the emoji. Once they hit maturity it turns into a grey powdery substance which consists of spores to help start the new generation of slime mould.
🧬(Popping the slime mould does not hurt them in the long run, it delays the maturity by around 12 hours. Popping one or two was a good educational experiment for Robin).
Day 27 of 30 Days Wild – The Birds and the Bees of Wroxham, Norfolk
Today we took a wander into Wroxham to meet the locals, so many swans and geese down by the water waiting to be fed. Armed with oats Robin and I fed them, although it could be a little daunting at times being in the middle of a group of hungry and grumpy swans! A flower bed nearby contained the perfect array of flowers for bees. I saw 3 different bee types in the lavender alone.
Day 28 of 30 Days Wild – Happisburgh Lighthouse, Norfolk
A rather soggy day but the exploring didn’t stop. A trip to Norfolk isn’t complete without admiring the red and white striped Happisburgh Lighthouse.
Did you know that this lighthouse is the only independently operated lighthouse in Great Britain? It was first built in 1790 and is 25.9m tall. It’s even featured been featured in a music video and film. Definitely worth a drive past if you’re in Norfolk, although the roads to it are a tad scary 😂
Day 29 of 30 Days Wild – Watching the Bees in Wroxham, Norfolk
I’m so drawn to watching the bees go about their work, it distracts me…easily! This flower bed in Wroxham was full of flowers. I saw at least 3 different types of bee I think – white tailed bumblebee, red tailed bumblebee and a carder bee.
Day 30 of 30 Days Wild – Hickling Broad Nature Reserve, Norfolk
One of our must see places when we visit Norfolk is Hickling Broad. We’ve walked around it several times, been on a boat trip and since Robin has joined us been exploring smaller patches in more details. I really enjoyed the boat trip we did and my favourite wildlife spot would have been seeing three Spoonbills flying in. I’d never seen a Spoonbill before!
Today though it was just David and I exploring and we didn’t have time to walk around the whole reserve. We certainly saw plenty though! Here is what we spotted:
• A marsh harrier
• A kestral
• Little egret
• Grey squirrel
• Peacock butterfly caterpillars (I think)
• Long tailed tits
• A great spotted woodpecker
• Blue tits
• A woolly bear caterpillar
I really wanted to see an Elephant Hawk Moth, that is top of my spotting list, but it was not meant to be!
And there we have it! All 30 days done again for another year. I was happy that I managed to end this challenge exploring some different areas down in Norfolk. This year has definitely been a challenge, in some ways more so than last year! With a busy workload and working from home it left little time to explore nature. If I wasn’t working I was driving back and forth to nursery, so I am thankful I ended the month on some annual leave.
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Winter Robin 