30 Days Wild
30 Days Wild is an annual challenge run by the Wildlife Trusts. For every day in June, participants are invited to do something to connect with the natural world. This year’s challenge is almost upon us, and although we are still in a state of lockdown, I will be trying to do something wild with our son every day.
The recent weather has certainly made it easier to animal watch; the warmth tends to encourage garden visitors. Recent guests to our patch include rosemary beetles and various bees. Slightly further afield, at a local lake, I can spend hours watching the birds. This is the season when many of them have broods, which they are working hard to raise.
This year’s 30 Days Wild event resources are online, and there are a range of downloadable materials here:
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/30DaysWild/Downloads
Ideas to try with children include completing an A-Z of nature, designing a new species of bird, and finding things in nature which are different colours of the rainbow.
The University of Derby has undertaken a five year review into the benefits of 30 Days Wild. By analysing data provided by participants, researchers have assessed the impact that taking part in the challenge has on people.
Key findings are that 30 Days Wild:
- resulted in very significant increases in nature connectedness for those who began with a weak connection to nature – their nature connectedness rose by 56%
- boosted the health of participants by an average of 30%
- made people, particularly those who started with a relatively weak connection to nature, significantly happier
- inspired significant increases in pro-nature behaviour
You can read the full report here: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/30-days-wild-5-year-review
Whether you spot insects and other bugs, sketch wild flowers, or just spend time appreciating the fresh air and sounds of nature, I hope you can participate in some – or perhaps all – of 30 Days Wild.
Sign up here: https://action.wildlifetrusts.org/page/57739/petition/1
This is great, Emma, thank you for inspiring us. Already from our own kitchen window we can see the mature local foxy lady, in full colour but just beginning to go a bit grey, as she struts across our back lawn among the epidemic of horsetails that have grown up there. We believe that her summerhouse is under a large Cotoneaster bush, just opposite our rather more rundown wooden construction. And as usual we are not doing a lot of grass-cutting – even less this year, as due to my op I’m not allowed to lift the hover-mower and give the front lawn its annual early-season once-over. The reason for the nature garden out front (and also why we always put off those jobbing gardeners who are starting to appear) is that we have usually more than one nest of ground-dwelling bees under the lawn, whitish-tailed ones, which delight in visiting our flowering bushes, and unless we look very hard it’s impossible to tell where their nests are. Although the fox did dig up one nest last year, I guess for the honey, but that’s nature! You are making me think we could do more. We are somewhat more restricted than you, Emma, as I am vulnerable due to my op recovery, but Alison and I will read up on your link, and as time goes on we will hopefully get out to see more of those wild places! Not a lot of excuse really, as Sevenfields is a stone’s throw away. I may well dust off the sketch pad and put aside my more digital kind of art for a while.
Hi Trevor. We have foxes who live locally and visit the garden overnight. Always a pleasure to see them. We participated in No Mow May until the end of this week, at which point the lawn had a trim, but the wild flowers survived. You do need to take care, but having somewhere like Sevenfields nearby offers a chance for a change of scenery and an opportunity to create!