Growing in Capel St. Mary
As a community organisation we are happy to arrange visits to the site and our wildlife area. This page provides reports of our recent visitors and what they were involved in.
A copy of our current risk assessments for visits can be found on our "Documents" page by following this link.
If you are interested in organising a visit to our site and it's wildlife area, please contact our visit co-ordinator at the following email address wildlife@capelallotments.co.uk
The Brownies visit to the site on 27th June went really well.
Some 30+ Brownies attended and were met at the gate by the Brownie leader (Heather Ceridwen – 07732 761811) where parents had dropped off at about 6pm. They split into 5 groups of 6 ish with at least one attendant adult for each group.
We started with the very brief – “be careful, danger lurks” talk.
Heather had set out 6 activities –
Bug Hotels – this involved a visit to our Bug Hotel in the wildlife area, and then they created their own in a flower pot.
Planting Peas and Tomatoes – they brought their own mini pots and compost and sowed their seeds. (Not sure how successful these will be given it’s the end of June – but who knows!)
Photo Scavenger Hunt – similar to the Beavers’ but where Heather had taken her own photographs on a previous visit.
Pond Dipping – I stayed near the pond and helped with sorting the sludge into white bowls. The Brownies were interested in finding the usual array of bugs and nymphs. One dragonfly nymph in particular seemed to be getting quite disgruntled by the sixth time of being dragged out of his home! Some of the Brownies enjoyed using the butterfly net to catch a few interesting flies. The adult leaders had a brief identification sheet to mark off some of the bugs.
Polytunnels – essentially a guided tour of what they’re for and how they work.
Using cameras to explore - each Brownie was issued with a camera and explored the site.
Cleaning up after an evening’s pond-dipping.
Not sure if that’s a pea or tomato that’s been sown – but that’s what a mini bug-hotel looks like.
The first site visit for 2024 on 3rd June went exceedingly well. The Beaver Scouts (Beavers) are the youngest group of Scouts being aged 6 – 8 years old. A group of 8 with attendant adults arrived at about 5.15pm. There was a little chaos in our small carpark as parents dropped off children but this quickly sorted itself out, and we grouped outside Plotters Retreat. I gave a very brief “health & safety speech” – essentially telling them to be careful and making sure that one of the 4 adults were always in close proximity. Claire Van Hinsberg (clairevanhinsberg@gmail.com) is the group leader and she split the group into 2 groups of 4.
Group A went pond-dipping. Given the potential for accidents, I stayed with the pond-dipping group, so there were at least 3 adults on hand. I demonstrated the boggy edge of the pond and explained if they ventured further they would get very wet. Nobody did.
Pond-dipping involves scraping a long-handled net along the bottom of the pond. We have a supply of nets on site, and I supplied a couple of white washing-up bowls into which the sludge in the net was deposited. Little boys have no qualms about squidging their hands through the sludge, and I was surprised at the amount of life that was apparent. Claire had brought with her some Pond Life Identification Charts which proved very useful, and we found plenty of mostly dragonfly nymphs – see attached photograph (that’s a very small hand!). Claire left me some copies of the charts which we’ll be able to use for future visits.
There were two points of entry for the pond-dipping and these areas – being quite boggy to start with – have become quite worn. I’ll keep an eye on this and see how it recovers and think about how we can make improvements. One possibility is to build a sort-of “jetty” but I can see a number of problems with that which I’ll discuss with Martin L in due course.
Prior to the visit, the pond was covered in (I believe) blanket-weed. I managed to clear an area so the nets weren’t clogged with weed. In future, it’s probably worth spending a bit of time with a much longer handled implement (I think I have something appropriate).
While Group A was in the wildlife area, Group B were let loose on the main allotment site for a “scavenger hunt”. I had taken a number of photos prior to the visit of “Allotment Icons”, which were then laminated onto a sheet. The idea is that the child ticks off the pictures as they go round the site. For future reference, it might be worth having a prize for the child that completes the task first.
Claire had also prepared a plant-based quiz, and some “find & colour” pictures to keep the children entertained. Again I have copies of these that can be used for future groups.
Groups A and B swapped over after about 30 minutes and Claire finished up with the quiz for the whole group. The group left the site at about 6.30pm when I locked the toilet and Plotters Retreat which I’d opened “just in case”. Nets took a bit of time to clean and these were put back in the store-shed.
The Wildlife Area’s resident ducks were sitting quite happily watching me clear the blanket-weed. Oddly, when they heard the sound of little boys approaching, they upped and left!
One of the squidgy dragonfly nymphs scooped out of the pond by a Beaver.
Marc Ruse
Site Visit Co-Ordinator
9/6/2024
