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Last Tuesday felt like the ultimate in Exploring and Conserving for my John Muir Award. I had been invited on board the Lochrin Belle, a purple canal barge belonging to ReUnion, to help their volunteers learn how to record wildlife during their trips along the Union Canal. I am amazed at the difference a few metres can make in perspective – being on the boat instead of on the towpath cast a whole different view on route 75. Being slightly removed let me see how busy the route became as a sunny lunchtime approached, and of course brought us closer to the birds on the far bank – moorhens starting to nest, mallards dabbling and songbirds in the trees at the bottom of canal-side gardens. We made close to 50 records into iRecord during the trip – magpie, robin, bluetit, wren, great tit, woodpigeon, blackbird – and the staff & volunteers of both ReUnion and All Aboard are going to carry on recording. I got a chance to steer too, but maybe the less said about that the better….

We talked about the future and realised that we were playing our own small part in a project that would last throughout the years. Words, Wild Flowers and Sculptures would play there part with the names of all of those who contributed to the memorial garden being remembered as the flowers bloom and grow year after year. We learned how sculptures would sit in this area which would allow people to reflect on the struggles that they have been through throughouyt the COVID Pandemic. To know we played our part made learning all the more worthwhile and its true to say that in every walk with nature we recieved more than we thought!!!

Spending time with people was the theme of our Nature Adventure today as we worked with, talked with and laughed with some amazing people. Our GKC Learners worked alongside volunteers from the TCV and were fortunate to meet people from GCC like our new friend Derek, one of the Senior Horticultural Specialists up at Pollok. We worked with Countryside Ranger Gavin playing our small part in the development of the COVID Memorial Garden at Pollok.

I did Parkrun on Saturday on route 7 in Troon. To distract myself from the driving wind and my screaming lungs, I decided to count the bird species along the 5k run – the route follows the prom along the shore, and then along a wall of dense sea buckthorn. The tally was 10 including a last minute redshank, as I stumbled towards the finish line. Plus another 5 as I walked home – bullfinches, curlew, oystercatchers, chaffinches, robin and a crowd of starlings which someone noted were “quite chatty when they’re all together like that”. Plus the loop marker of the route was the Millennium Milepost we painted with Eco-Ayrshire in 2019…..getting a bit rusty now after an alphabet of salty storms. Maybe all this noticing is what slowed me down...not quite a PB this time, more of a lame duck! :)

On Friday afternoon I took a walk down route 7 at Doonfoot. The clue’s in the name - the Jubilee Bridge spans the foot of the River Doon as it meets the sea and is always a good place for birdwatching. The usual knot of redshanks hunkered down on the bank, some spiky-haired female goosanders and their glossy-headed males, mallards and swans being fed from the wharf, some teal dabbling, and a couple of goldeneyes demonstrating well from afar that bird names are rubbish, and that they’d more reliably be called whitecheeks. But there was also a new bird for me – what turned out, on checking over a cup of tea later, to be a Little Grebe. Hard to spot as it was often underwater but this is what gives it its other name of Dabchick, from dip chick referring to its habit of taking constant dips. Crossley describes it as a ‘floating rabbit’ due to its small size and fluffy tail and tells me the call is ‘like the whinny of a tiny horse or slightly insane giggle.’ I listened online and it made me laugh – welcome at the end of a long week!