Rooks and jackdaws over Stanley Wildwood at dusk
What has WSWG been doing this month?
With the focus on the Stanley Wildwood consultation over the summer, we’ve got a bit behind with other news for you, so here goes at a wide-ranging update. We didn’t manage the summer holiday events we had hoped to run in our WizzyWARP24 (Wellbeing and Resilience) Programme, with support from the PKC Green Living Fund, but we are up and running with them again.
We enjoyed a wonderful second visit by our new group of friends from Vision PK on 11 September for a longer walk in Taymount Wood, a delicious soup and sandwich picnic (provided by Alison’ Kitchen again, this time in the great outdoors rather than the rain-retreat provided by Stanley Village Hall in June) and an engaging Pop-up Climate Café talking about trees and their carbon sequestration and storage over time, and also possible solutions in trying to make sense of such a huge, complex subject and often mixed messages when deciding what actions for climate and nature we can take in our own daily lives. We could easily have spent twice the time we had on that, but what an interesting conversation even so. Thank you to all our Vision PK friends who came with their helpers and beautiful guide dogs. Thank you also to all the WSWG volunteers who helped make this such a lovely event. Looking forward to more shared opportunities like this in future too.
WSWG and Vision PK walk, picnic and pop-up Climate Café in Taymount Wood
We have been working up a WizzyWARP24 event for older people in Stanley Village Hall on “Silver Sunday”, 6 October from 2-4pm as part of a wider Perth and Kinross events week by Age UK, P&K Health and Social Care Partnership and others, celebrating the role of older people in our society. Posters and notices will be going out soon, if you’d like to come along.
We are also making plans with Biscuit and Sarah at Wee Adventures for an outdoor adventuring WizzyWARP24 event in the woods for a younger age group on 2 November.
We had a wonderful recce in Taymount Wood on 16 September with the Community Payback Team to look at activities they could become involved in through the WSWG project, hopefully starting with a WizzyWARP24 event very soon.
Other WizzyWARP24 events are also in the pipeline, so more news on those next month, hopefully.
Two WSWG trustees were invited to a forest bathing taster session with NatureMinds in Alyth Den on 7 September with a view to that being something we might organise in Taymount or Five Mile Woods at some point. It was a really lovely thing to do, made all the more enjoyable by the wonderful warm and sunny weather, although it is something that can be done in all weathers.
In terms of our general networking, we participated in the annual meeting of the Tayside Biodiversity Partnership’s Farming, Upland and Woodland Working Group on 4 July and attended the drop-in for the launch of the Perthshire Nature Prescribing Calendar for which WSWG was on the working group earlier this year. We also attended the Highland & Strathtay Stronger Communities Teams meeting in August, which focused on digital services in the health and wellbeing sector. Two WSWG trustees also attended Scotland The Big Picture Conference in Perth on 14 September, on nature recovery and rewilding, this year’s theme being “Why Not Scotland?” A really excellent event full of inspiring, uplifting stories and encouragement to act collectively for nature recovery wherever and whoever we are.
WSWG admin continues to develop with a new Xero accounting system now in operation. We also now have a Teams account, which we were able to set up free of charge, courtesy of Microsoft’s policy on supporting the charitable sector. WSWG has also now received a Section 19 Licence permitting us to participate in the PKC community minibus scheme. We intend to develop a WSWG pool of MiDAS certificated drivers to drive the community minibuses to support our events programme. In the meantime, we’d love to know if there are any already MiDAS-trained drivers in the area who could volunteer for us just now?
Much is also going on around fundraising for acquisition of Taymount Wood initially with WSWG in ongoing discussions with FLS, Scottish Land Fund and most recently the National Lottery Heritage Fund. More on all this soon.
We circulated a notice kindly produced for us by PKC regarding the U38 road closure until 4 October for road resurfacing from Stanley past the Five Mile Wood car park and the associated detour via Luncarty with temporary on-road parking arrangements west of the car park. A WSWG member helpfully pointed out that Five Mile Wood should still be accessible on foot from Stanley via the Active Kids path.
And now a really nice one to finish on. WSWG chair, Murray Gauld, rescued a tiny baby hedgehog in Five Mile Wood in July. The hoglet was by himself and hadn’t moved from the track and the hot sun for over half an hour. At only 110g, he was taken to Alison at Hogscroft Hedgehog Rescue, in Inchture, with whom he progressed to 165g and was out of the incubator by 1 August. Alison named him Fiver after the place he was found. If we find out more about his story, we will let you know.
Word of the Month
Hoglet: Baby hedgehogs are called hoglets. Hedgehogs usually give birth in June and July, though the hoglet season can begin in early spring following a mild winter and stretch until autumn. The average litter size is four or five young, though can be as many as seven. However, they usually only wean two or three successfully. (Source: Hedgehog Street)
What’s coming up next?
- Saturday 21 September, Tayside Recorders Day, Central Library, The Wellgate, Dundee. Short presentation by WSWG on the Wildlife in Taymount Wood.
- Sunday 6 October 2-4pm, “Silver Sunday in Stanley Village Hall”, free afternoon tea event for older people (ie over 50s, but we’re not asking!). All welcome. Find out about the wildlife, walking routes, history and heritage of Taymount and Five Mile Woods and the plans we have to bring them into community ownership, so they remain a thriving, natural resource for us in all in future, including you! WSWG information and displays. Nature table. Creative activities. Species Bingo! Slide show. Pop-up Climate Café (come and find out what that is!). Emailing us will help us with numbers contact@weststormontwoodlandgroup.scot but if you don’t get round to it, please just come along on the day anyway.
- Saturday 2 November, outdoor adventures in the woods with Biscuit of Wee Adventures. Full details and booking information to follow.
