The South Holderness Countryside Society’s club for Young Naturalists opened it’s doors at our Society’s headquarters in Hollym for the first time in 2012 for children of Primary School age. The Young Nats Club had taken off!
Margaret Kennedy, a retired, professional primary school teacher with some thirty years of teaching experience, together with her able assistants Fred Kennedy, Hetty Smith, Louise Drewery and Tom Linguard, ran the group on Saturday mornings twice a month. It was a well-run place of learning for those children who had an interest in Natural History. The new beginners are taught a well prepared and researched introduction into the fascinating world of Nature whether this takes place on site, or whilst enjoying one of the specially arranged outings to study a particular branch of Natural History. How the parts of a flower function, how to recognise the various trees. They look at mini-beasts and learn their place in the hierarchy of the Natural world. What they look like through a microscope noting the bright warning colours, or the camouflage. What flowers are mini beasts attracted to, and why. The variation of subjects is endless.
In their first year the nature garden was put together, nest boxes made, trees planted for the Diamond Jubilee, and the children absorbed each subject with enthusiasm! Margaret was later joined by Susan Stanford and Margaret Graburn who brought Charly her granddaughter to join us as our youngest Young Nat. Seasonal projects were included throughout the year and also land based tasks such as creating a butterfly and bee flowerbed, making bird boxes, renovating the bug hotels, and litter collecting. Bug hotels, with a ‘lift’ to reach the top floors started to appear. Huge models of insects were made to put in the Ivy House grounds. By the end of 2012 a waiting list has been put in place ready for the start of 2013 which saw a wonderful 13 enthusiastic children settling into their new studies, including bird migration, the construction of flowers, study of feathers, bug hunts, bird song and the dissection of owl pellets.
The photograph shows Amy, Edward, Joel, Abbey, Joseph, Emily, William and Kira having just completed their Countryside Olympic Games in 2012 which involved shotput with a pine cone and other fun and energetic games all using items found within the woodland.
Margaret worked hard putting a full and suitable syllabus together for the Young Nats to provide a broad knowledge base but she wanted them to be able to mark their achievements, so she signed them all up for the bronze, silver and gold awards set by the RSPB. Each award became more challenging than the last with the reward of certificates on completion. Each new member would start at the bronze level as the longer standing members worked their way up. The photo shows Amy and Abbey, Felicity, Kira, Joseph, Adam and Charley receiving their first certificate.
Tracey Netherton, Margaret and Fred’s daughter, joined the Young Nats squad to help with the split in the group and took on syllabus organisation for the group to help and support Margaret who was, at this time, showing signs of illness. Tracey then helped to develop SHCS very own award – the Young Naturalists Conker Badge – named for Adam’s love of conkers! Adam was the very first to receive the award as the covid lockdown struck.
Bird watching and identification was always a popular session for a sunny Saturday morning and trips to Bempton cliffs RSPB nature reserve always included a picnic lunch together.
Adam was always keen to help with tasks involving soil – or dirt – or bugs – or conkers!
Guest speakers included Alan Burnham who brought along his collection of bird song recordings for the children to learn to identify; a visit from a barn owl, who only had one wing following an accident, named Arfur – because he was only ‘alf a bird! Louise gave talks on mammals, Tom on ants, Fred taught them how to measure the height of a tree using only a stick and a tape measure and introducing them to the art of dendrochronology! (tree ring dating for those of you who don’t know). Tracey fascinated them with owl pellet dissection and anatomy. They planted trees and shrubs suitable to attract wildlife throughout the year, learnt all of the long words associated with photosynthesis, and phototropism, dicots and monocots, full plant anatomy, pond dipping and identification of creatures found, identification of animal tracks, and much more. We learnt about recycling, composting, the anatomy of amphibians, leaf structure, the use of different types of microscopes, and we did lots of craft – and got very muddy! Got stung by nettles. Got wet. Played hide and seek in the woods. And made mud tree masks.
The last Young Nats session was held in the March just before the covid lockdown. By that time it was being run by Tracey, with help from Fred and Charlie Eldred, as Margaret had become too ill to carry on. It is with extreme sadness that the absolute passion of her final years, her beloved Young Nats group, has now gone from her memory.
The young ones that started with us are now old enough to have finished university. Certainly some of the little ones are now well over 6 foot! We know that the grounding we gave them helped them to achieve great results at school in their science classes and hopefully may have encouraged some to continue to follow this passion.
Watch this space – we certainly want to start the Young Nats again – possibly next year. If you want to get involved please let me know. It’s rewarding. It’s fascinating. It can be very muddy!