- Less than usual, it has to be said!! Our main focus has been working out how we are going to operate during the Covid19 crisis. Like so many people in the current lockdown, we have made a start by participating in some virtual meetings using Zoom to progress WSWG business. Our plans for the drop-in community consultation events are obviously on hold. We are therefore currently investigating how we might carry out the consultation by other means during the coming months. Please stay tuned as we work things out.
- This past month saw the second monthly blog for WSWG by Margaret Lear, writer, gardener and green woman engaged with change, to help us follow our two woods through the coming seasons. Under the circumstances, this couldn’t have come at a better time. This month’s piece “Ambushed by Birdsong in Taymount Wood” can be read on the WSWG Facebook page and website. It is an absolute delight which will hopefully carry you and your senses through our springtime woods without even leaving home!
WSWG Word of the Month – April
- Origins of names often cause debate. One theory is that April was named after Aphrodite, the goddess oflove, beauty and fertility. Another cites the Latin word “aperire”, meaning “to open”, referring to the opening of buds and flowers in the spring. Both are apt and plausible, and reflected throughout Taymount and Five Mile Woods at this time of year. Spring flowers like lesser celandine, pussy willow and gorse open up to provide nectar and pollen for queen bumble bees as they emerge from hibernation. Insects hatch. Frog and toad spawn too. Birds are raising their broods. You will see bats feeding most nights after their long hibernation. And with luck and a keen eye, there might be sightings of red squirrel kittens starting to venture out close to the breeding drey with their mothers.
What’s coming up next?
- What we are looking for is help from you all to keep the connections going between our woods and our community.
- Help us imagine April in the woods. Stanley Development Trust is promoting local walking routes for people to use during the Covid19 crisis. If any of you are managing to walk, run, cycle or ride through Taymount or Five Mile Woods in the course of your daily exercise allowance, please let us all know what you see and hear. Tell us what flora and fauna you see, what sounds you hear, any ideas you have for the woods in future and even any problems you come across. If you can, do send us photos or video clips, even a selfie with a seasonal woodland scene behind, which we can post on the Facebook page and website.
