If You Go Down To The Woods Today...

I have mentioned this on a number of occasions and here's another opportunity... we are so lucky that we have Witton Country Park literally on our doorstep and as a family we use it with great regularity - I run/exercise at least four times a week on the park, we take the dog for walks up there, my youngest son even had a hand in designing the adventure playground that's there. It's the perfect place for us to explore as "Nature Detectives" using our Woodland Trust membership.

On Sunday we had a wander around Witton Park Wood here are some photos and a video of what we got up to. There are lots of pathways to explore and hills to climb and it sometimes feels a bit like Enid Blyton's Enchanted Wood. Some of the trees have grown in unusual ways or have fallen over so there's plenty of opportunity to climb.

  

  

  

  

We found a really unusually shaped tree and we were going to draw in in our books, however, as we got closer I heard the girls shouting that they'd found some money.  As you can see from the pictures, coins have been pushed into the branches of the tree and the bark as grown around them.  There are coins of all denominations all over this tree and we have no idea why or how. 

  

The best find of the day was one that I would have missed if I'd have been on my own. The girls found a small plaque, hidden away at the bottom of a tree, almost out of sight under a bush. It says "NHS 60. This tree was planted to celebrate the 60th year of the NHS in Blackburn. Adding years to life and life to years. 29th January 2009".  This was a really fitting end to our wander around the woods

We made lists of everything that we saw and heard. Here's what the girls wrote in their books:

~ Trees
~ Rivver (river)
~ Horses
~ Bryyge (bridge)
~ Dogs
~ Horses Poo (there were some horse trials on...)
~ Roos (roots)
~ Witton Wood
~ Nettles
~ Steps
~ More Steps
~ Scriwules (squirrels - but we didn't see these)
~ Branch
~ Bird (we heard the birds)
~ Rabit
~ Fat rabit (there are some rabbits in the Myerscough College training centre at the edge of the woods)
~ Lily Pads

The Woodland Trust are a charity. Without donations they would not exist to protect our woodland for our future generations to enjoy and the wildlife that lives there. In the past 70 years, more than half of our ancient woodland has been destroyed even. This fact is staggering when you think that over 250 of our most threatened species' depend on native woodland for their survival. With our Woodland Trust membership and our roles as Nature Detectives we can take part in puzzles games and activities to learn about plants, trees, animals and exploring outdoors. Find out how you can become a member of the Woodland Trust right here. 

  

I am currently working with The Woodland Trust to help them promote their #NatureDetectives campaign. 

For more information please see my disclosure policy

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