Hands-on at Ashridge Meadows

On Saturday, we got hand-on with nature at Ashridge Meadows near Wokingham. Education Officer Michael & I cooked up the idea for a family nature day when we visited there in the autumn. Wokingham Borough Council’s Community Engagement Team were keen, so we thought we’d give it a go. There’s no car park so we invited everyone from Eldridge Park to have a go at nature spotting around the lovely green meadow they’re lucky enough to have right on their doorstep.

For those that don’t know, Education Officer Michael is a total superstar! He visited the meadows a few days before the event to see what was in flower and what creatures were about…and created a special nature spotting sheet for children to take on their walk. It was so nice of the parents to say how much the children enjoyed it. They loved the special spotter sheet because it listed things they could actually see! If you’d like to try it out for yourself, click on the image below to download it.

When you plan these things, you hope for a sunny day right? I wasn’t banking on a heatwave though! When the forecast said 28 or 29 degrees, I wasn’t sure if it was going to work. But with a gazebo for shade and a very welcome breeze, we were very happy, and it was exciting to see so many families braving the heat to come and join in.

The weather wasn’t ideal for birds, or even insects…let alone people, but we had lots of lovely plants to find and the damselflies put on a beautiful display along the riverbank. And for those that didn’t fancy a nature walk, or just wanted a quiet moment in the shade, we had our lovely cool gazebo to sit in and do a little colouring. Perfect.

We spoke to nearly 100 people across the day and send a big thank you to everyone who came along and made it so special.

Sarah
Thames Basin Heaths Partnership