30 Days Wild: Day 1 - Couch Potato

Today The Wildlife Trusts have launched their 30 Days Wild campaign with the aim of encouraging all of us to do something wild every single day throughout June.  Not wild in a "I got legless drunk and threw a TV set threw a window" way, more in a "I'm connecting with the wild things in nature" way

I'll be honest, so far as I'm concerned they could have picked a better month.  This June is possibly the busiest month I have ever had and over the course of the next 30 days I'll be visiting Grizedale, Kendal, Leyland, Alston Hall, Wokingham, Leighton Moss, London (for a week), Portsmouth, Penrith and Wigan for work purposes and the occasional bit of enjoyment.  We'll also be spending 4 days cycling the entire route around Morecambe Bay for the launch of the new Morecambe Bay Cycle Way.  Oh, and the deadline for our book is 30th June plus it's my birthday on the 18th June so there'll be at least one day with a hangover.

View from the scopes at Foulshaw Moss

I'll be blogging every day for the entire month to chart our wild encounters - some large, some small - to prove that whatever you're doing and wherever you are, you can make time and space in your life for nature.

Today I'm starting small and simple with something you can do from your desk or sofa - Cumbria Wildlife Trust have set up an "Osprey Cam" on the osprey nest in Foulshaw Moss.  Most days you can visit the reserve to get a view through the manned scopes on the viewing platforms, but right now, wherever you are, you can click on this link to see live footage streamed directly from the nest.  It's well worth watching too, in the past 24 hours 2 chicks have hatched from the 3 eggs laid and while mum is busy protecting them from the wind and rain dad goes out hunting for food and occasionally hides out in his roosting tree ("man shed") nearby.

If you're new to osprey watching check out their handy "Know your osprey" blog and take a peek at the footage below to see the moment we discovered there were three eggs.

Tomorrow we'll be going wild on Segways with Go Ape in Grizedale Forest so watch this space for red squirrels, gorgeous views and possibly the occasional bruise...

*That's* not a bog, THIS is a bog!

Osprey

A few years ago I wrote a light-hearted piece called "Survival Tips for the Bog Bound" outlining some practical, if not entirely serious, approaches to crossing boggy ground on the fells.  Having now spent an afternoon planting seedlings in a proper bog, it's clear I didn't have a clue what I was talking about.

Foulshaw Moss is a Cumbria Wildlife Trust (CWT) property a few miles from where we live.  It's best known at the moment for being home to a beautiful pair of osprey, but they are only a small part of the story. Since 1996 when they took over the reserve from the Forestry Commission CWT have been hard at work returning the bog pristine condition - they've done loads, but there's plenty still left to do.

PROPER bog!

Many years ago this area was a huge boggy expanse and crossing the treacherous sands of Morecambe Bay was a preferable alternative to crossing the bog.  During the last century much of the bog was drained for agricultural reasons and in the 1960s was heavily planted with non-native species,  but as the water went away so did many of the rare plants and animals associated with it.  Stage one of the restoration was about removing of the non native trees and rebuilding raised banks to keep the water in.

Now that there is plenty of water around it's time to give nature a hand by replanting bog species to bind the soil and help maintain the conditions.  In all there are 27,000 seedlings to plant.  27,000 - that's enough to give me back ache just thinking about it!

One of the things I've often said to people about our new life is that we have a lot less money than we used to have, but we have a lot more time - and what's the point in having all that time unless you can spend it helping out a little, so with my philanthropic head firmly on, off we set, in the pouring rain, to plant seedlings in an enormous bog.

Expecting to spend the day getting very wet and muddy I opted for a set of ancient waterproofs which were so big they reminded me of school field trips.

Steve decided to get to grips with the plants we'd be working with...

And this is just a small selection to start us off.

Step one was distributing the seedling trays around the section of the reserve we were working on and step two was planting them all.

A spot of impromptu bridge building!

Reserve warden Simon showing me how to planter works.

Our handiwork.

Men at work

Men still at work - I did help, honest!

By the end of the day we'd managed to plant around 850 seedlings (only 26,150 to go!) and as if to reward all our hard efforts the sun shone down, brightening the landscape and almost making me forget my aching back (only almost!).

All that remained was for me to try taking an arty shot of some dead trees...

...before we finished off our flask of tea and maltloaf (the new orange one - have you tried it?  Fantastic!) while we watched the osprey from afar.  That's them in the picture below - they're on the small tree in the middle, right at the back.

Foulshaw Moss Osprey

And if that's not clear enough for you - here's some video Steve took with his super zoom lens of one of them preening.