Our team at Suffolk Wildlife Trust have had another wonderfully wild week. On Day 15, Shaun, our Membership Development Officer, and his son Logan embrace the peace and tranquillity of nature through camping. He writes "We asked Logan what the best thing about camping and being outside was and he told us it was the ‘peace and quiet!’. He enjoyed sitting in his chair and listening to all the sounds of nature around him and embracing the view (which for a toddler is amazing), eventually a friendly blackbird appeared which excited him to no end!"  

Then, on Day 16, Lucy, our Wilder Communities Manager, found some beautiful tawny owl chicks! Lucy said, “Over the past few days, I have been searching for the tawny owl chicks in Christchurch Park and I was beyond excited to finally find them! 

"After scanning the trees searching for them for a while, I finally noticed two fluffy puff balls and two sets of claws. After a while of sitting, waiting and watching them, they started to move and inquisitively look down revealing more than just than their bums, allowing me to see their gorgeous faces. 

"Despite being there for well over an hour watching two of the young, I hadn’t noticed Mum soaking up the rays one branch over, and I was equally delighted to have seen her too.

"After another half an hour or so I got the cherry on top and I finally spotted the third owlet. It just goes to show how amazing their camouflage is (or how rubbish I am at hide and seek!).” 

The tawny owls in Christchurch have delighted park-goers in Ipswich for many years, and the arrival of this new trio is no exception.

Emma, our Wild Learning Officer, and her daughter Daisy have also been flower pressing for Day 17 of 30 Days Wild. “We’ve been escaping the heat this afternoon and checking on the petals Daisy collected for her flower press last month and adding a couple of fallen poppy petals. The pressed petals are so delicate and she’s been sticking them into her scrapbook to make all kinds of patterns."

On Day 18, I decided to set up a camera trap to see exactly how many different bird species visited my feeders.

I don’t have a big garden, but we love feeding and watching our garden birds. I was curious to see how many birds I could record over the course of one day and was thrilled about the variety that showed up on the camera. Of course, the moment I took the camera trap down a nuthatch appeared as well! Typical! But I was so excited to see it using the feeder nonetheless.  
Recording on camera traps is an extremely rewarding and non-invasive way to watch wildlife, even if it's just in your garden.

Lucy, our Wilder Communities Manager, and Katharine, our Learning Intern, sent us this extraordinary photo as they stopped to admire a humongous fungus on Day 19! Lucy writes, “Whilst driving today we spotted this massive fungi and we just had to pull over to admire it! This is a dryad's saddle and is the UK’s largest capped mushroom. It can be found on fallen logs and tree stumps. Look out for it from April all the way through to the end of the summer.”  

On Day 20, Wild Learning Officer Joanne Atkins has been discovering longhorn beetles at Bradfield Woods. "They are known as longhorn beetles because of their long antennae. Longhorn beetles are quite distinctive, and many are patterned, which makes them a good family to start with if you want to learn to identify a few beetles. Some of the most striking ones to look out for are the wasp beetle, and the black and yellow longhorn."

Finally, on Day 21, I found a hummingbird hawkmoth in my garden, busily taking advantage of the honeysuckle. Hummingbird hawkmoths are one of my favourite moth species. There were actually two that visited throughout the day, so I felt really lucky to have them.

We are now entering our final week of 30 Days Wild, so we will be packing in as many random acts of wildness as we can! Watch this space to see what we get up to!