Wild Skills Week
Growing Confidence Project
https://www.field-studies-council.org/courses-and-experiences/opportunities-for-16-25-year-olds/growing-confidence/
Over October half term we had a group of young people staying at Preston Montford for a week packed with outdoors activities - canoeing, bushcraft, a visit to the Stipserstones, making bird boxes and conservation tasks.
They completed their John Muir Discovery Award and many also attended for their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award.
At the end of the week they wrote something about their week for their John Muir Award. Here is what they wrote.
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Day by day
A poem about each day of the course (bushcraft, canoeing, Stipserstones, conservation tasks, making bird boxes).
Blow by blow a sooty smell
turned to ash burning cascades of flying lights as natural fibres crack
Stroke by stroke endless water
moved further and further from the eagerly dipped paddles
Gust by gust the bloody
butchered stones stretch far beyond the eye
Chop by chop relentless vines
encroached onto ripened ready Land
Nail by nail birds fly from far and wide to see the inept builder of their home
A poem
The earth a brilliant red
Hand hewn cliffs tower over the trees
Over the carpet of needles and leaves of
Orange and gold, rustling with wind as…
The sky a looming grey
Storm torn clouds filled with rain
That pours into puddles and pools of
Mud and water that contrasts the trees…
Growing in vibrant greens and hues of
Life, the bark hidden by layers of soft and
Somehow beautiful moss, lichen
That teems with life and animals…
Squirrels bounce from limb to limb and
Birds soar above us, they cry to the wind
The rain, creeping in the leaves the insects
Are shaken off as we feed our fire…
The flames start small, a smouldering of
Dry wood and smoke, the heat is welcome as
The fire grows and dances in the cold air
A grey ash, embers fall through the air…
Drifting then landing softly on
The earth a brilliant red
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Canoe Day
The beginning of the day was quite difficult after not
having done canoeing in many years so it took me a long time to get used to.
Since I was at the back of the canoe, my role was to steer and ensure we are
heading in the right direction. Since we were travelling in a canal we had to
ensure we were constantly travelling in a straight line and a small adjustment
to steering could have led us into a bush and crash.
In the beginning it was very hard as we often ended up
travelling in zigzags and took us a while to get a good pattern in terms of how
we travelled. When it got to lunch, we had to take the canoes out of the canal
and carry it across a lock and this was when it started raining and everyone’s
moods went down. This was when we tried a different approach by switching
places to see if our teamwork would improve and travelling would be better, but
I discovered that I wasn’t very good at being as the motor in the front. To
change this, we stopped and changed back to our initial places and decided to build
our communication skills and talk to each other in the best approach to avoid a
bad situation like crashing. By the end of the day I started to really enjoy
myself especially after the sun came out and everyone’s mood and happiness
improved and I found myself enjoying my time with my group.
Wild Skills Week
Only a few days before Halloween, we were up on the bleak
and rocky moorlands of the Stiperstones. The rain was just easing, but the sky
was still quite grey despite the lack of fog. On such a day, at such a time of
year, one could almost imagine the faeries amassing to ride forth. With the
walls of the world feeling thin, I found the tale of Wild Edric stirring in my
mind.
In the distance loomed large rocks, and small stones were
scattered over the moor. The ground felt as if it had been just inundated by
the autumn rains after a slightly drier summer. Growing amongst the rocks were
clumps of heather, no longer purple but green and brown. And growing amongst
the heather one could see their cousins growing- bilberry, and once you got
your eye in you could something else. This, I was informed, was cowberry;
something I should have recognised but, out the field, did not initially do so.
On we walked, towards the distant, huge rocks. Up in the sky
a bird appeared. It seemed quite large, but as it approached it become clear it
was no bird of prey, but a Corvid. Its wings were jagged, but I couldn’t get a
very clear view of its tail. Sara informed us that the bird was a Raven. Ravens
are beautiful birds, highly social and intelligent, and they have such a bleak
wildness to their atmosphere. A wanderer might considerer Ravens to be a joy of
the Stiperstones. But they were not all there was to see here.
As we were walking towards those looming rocks, we came
across another sign of intelligence. Smaller chunks of quartzite had been
collected together and piled up into a cairn, located at where three paths met.
And further beyond the Cairn, an enormous quartzite outcrop, several in fact.
If you looked sideways, one could almost suppose one of them could serve as a
chair for some legendary giant. There are some that say that giant is not mortal
but the very Lord of the Hills, hence the name given to one of the outcrops-
the Devil’s chair. Together with the tale of Wild Edric, this a hill steeped in
the mythology of people.
And all the while, as a group of upright apes contemplate their faerie stories, the ravens above keep their own vigil. Who knows how they might see the world, see these moors? Meanwhile, slowly, the processes of weathering continue to shape the landscape as geological processes shaped the landscape since the Cambrian time and before.
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Wild Skills Week Review
Day 1 – Bushcraft Skills
Throughout the day we focused on the skills of:
Fire building
Removing fire safely to leave no trace
Making natural survival resources – nettle string
One of the main things I took away from the day was the emphasis placed on understanding why we were doing certain activities, such as the importance of safe fire removal. We thought about how many of the techniques will have originated from knowledge being passed down orally throughout history – I thought this was an interesting and new approach to an activity which I had done previously.
Day 2 – Canoeing and Mammal
Traps
Taking a 12km journey down the canal acted as a good team building activity
as we had to encourage each other to remain positive despite the bad weather
conditions.
Throughout the journey, observing the surrounding plants and taking
photos allowed us to explore the environment.
The evening consisted of making Longworth mammal traps. I found understanding why trapping and recording local mammals was equally as important as physically positioning them in contributing to my knowledge and experience in conservation.
Day 3 – A Visit to the
Stiperstones
Botany was a new concept introduced to day 3, allowing me to identify
plants in the heather moorland habitat such as common heather and bilberry.
Quadrat sampling of the plant populations introduced me to some of the methods used by the local wildlife trusts to conserve the natural environment. This also helped me to build on my current knowledge from A levels.
Day 4 – Conservation at
Nesscliffe
By collaborating with Shropshire Wildlife Trust, we worked to reduce
the coverage of Rhododendron which we learnt to be minimally useful in
supporting other forest species or maintaining species richness.
I found this to be a therapeutic process which would make a lasting
impact on the local environment.
In the evening we looked at the challenges wildlife trusts
can face in maintaining the balance between maintaining the local economy and
protecting the local area.
Day 5 – Bird boxes
and completing the award
Monday:
Began with meeting the group before moving on to bush craft activities
such as starting a fire and creating string using nettles.
Tuesday:
Today was exploring the local area by canoeing on a canal. We explored
wildlife and plant life in the area as well as learning to control a canoe.
During the evening we set up mammal traps to collect information on the
mammals in the local area.
Wednesday:
We began with opening the mammal traps which we set up the night
before. Overall we found 2 mammals, a vole and a mouse and surprisingly a bird
which quickly flew off. In the day we visited the Stiperstones in the
Shropshire hills where we learned about wildlife and plants such as the
heather, which is the only habitat for the red grouse which lives there.
Thursday:
Conservation tasks were the agenda for today. We visited Nesscliffe to
remove the invasive rhododendron which was damaging the land and preventing
anything else from growing. To finish we took a walk around the area to have a
look at the views and explore the area.
Friday:
On the last day we made some bird boxes which we will take home and place out to give the birds a place to live.
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Discover
Shrewsbury, Shropshire
Stipertones Hills
Very windy but it has great views
You can see for miles
