It has been a while since I added a blog post onto the website, mostly because I have been fully focused on Wild Roots Nature Fest, so with the festival getting ever closer, it seemed like a good time to add a new post to explain a bit more about the festival and why it has taken so much of my time!
Outreach and community
I have been to Escape2Make, Quernmore Primary School, Lancaster 13th Scouts (Beavers group) and Carnforth Scouts (Beavers group) where children have had some creative fun colouring in images of a whole host of animals to create content for the Trail of Nature competition that will be in town from 9th to 30th June. I’ve learned a huge amount about plants and animals in our local patch, and more widely in the UK (did you know that we have over 350 species of cranefly in the UK, or 270 species of bees and 60 species of dung beetle? I certainly didn’t!).
Most of all, it has been wonderful to see children’s imaginations fired by creativity and curiosity. With questions like ‘do worms have brains?’ (yes, but simple ones) and ‘if swifts don’t land for 2-3 years once they fledge, how do they drink?’ (they drink when it’s raining or by swooping low over water and dipping with their beaks open).
Why 'Everything is Connected'?
This is a phrase that has kept popping up and the more I heard it, the more it resonated. The reason is that no single species lives in complete isolation (if you know of one, please let me know, I’d be fascinated to find out how that’s possible!), because we all have connections with other species. And yes, that includes us as humans. We eat plants, animals and fish; we breathe oxygen that has been released from plants; we drink water that has hosted countless species; our bodies host millions of microscopic organisms (from gut flora to things you’d rather not know about!); our actions impact on the natural world. We are a part of nature, even if we have lost our physical and/or emotional connection to it. And that’s why Wild Roots Nature Fest is happening. It’s a chance for us to reconnect (or deepen the connections we already have), whether directly through appreciation and understanding of individual species, or indirectly through exercise or arts.
Taking the oak tree as an example, it provides habitats for many species, including some of the other species that feature in the Trail of Nature: lichens grow on its trunk, branches and twigs; birds such as goldfinches and swifts may find suitable nesting sites; it will have associations with fungi that provide it valuable nutrients and when it dies, the fungi will break it down to release those nutrients back into the soil for other trees and organisms; worms will consume the dead leaves each year, taking nutrients for themselves, but also cycling them back to the tree and other organisms and improving the quality of the soil; hedgehogs and lapwings will eat those worms. So just from one species, we can see so many connections. And in some ways, we are connected to all of them, and they to each other, because all of these species live in Lancaster.
I hope that you will join us for Wild Roots and spend some time connecting with nature. The evidence of many scientific studies has shown the benefits, from the calming effect of the patterns in nature, to phytoncides that elicit a positive reaction in our brain chemistry & immunity, and the electrical grounding of walking barefoot on grass. By combining this with other activities such as exercise, singing, creative writing or making items from wood, our aim is to provide a range of complementary wellbeing activities so that everyone can find their connection.