Dinosaurs of China

Over the summer we visited the Dinosaurs of China exhibit in Nottingham. It was great, a beautifully laid out museum with wonderful information and clarity of purpose.

I loved learning about the links between birds and dinosaurs and so did Pickle and Penguin. The fossils they had were amazing and clearly showed the features of dinosaurs reflected in modern birds.

They also had a fantastic tent outside with perfectly pitched activities for the kids to extend their learning through playing with various resources.

All in all a wonderful day and learning experience. Did you take any interesting trips over the summer? I would love to hear about them. Until next time. x

Heartwood Forest

During the holidays we took a trip to Heartwood Forest. It is an interesting site where they have a lot of new woodland planted with some teeny trees as well as some established woodland.

We had a wonderful long walk around, starting with the Magical Meander. It is a beautiful trail with lots of carved animals along the way.

There were a whole range of different creatures along the way.

Pickle and Penguin loved to run up to the different animals.

This archway was beautiful, the other side had pictures of leaves from different types of trees carved on. Pickle and Penguin loved to trace the lines with their fingers and point out all of the different things they could spot.

There were muddy puddles and horses too. Pickle and Penguin found an area of the more established woodland and wanted to explore more. I just love to look up....

I love trees in the sunshine, I like looking up at the sky between the leaves and I love the dappled shade of trees in the summer time.

We had a ball in the woods. The kids were rolling logs around, we found a rope swing and had a go, peered into a badger set and built a den. It was such great family time all together.
And to top it all off we got a bit lost after wandering off of our route and ended up getting caught in a lot of rain and finding lunch in a little village pub. A perfect day.

I would definitely recommend a visit. x

30 Days Wild - Day 28

Today we watched a brand new ladybird emerge from its pupa stage. It was great to see and Pickle and Penguin were really happy to watch, they love checking our plants for ladybirds, their pupa and the larvae.

30 Days Wild - Day 22

Today we spotted a squirrel in the garden nibbling at our strawberries!! We didn't manage to catch a picture before it scampered away but it did provoke an interesting conversation about wild animals and how they find food.

30 Days Wild - Day 17

Today we went on a trip to ZSL Wipsnade Zoo. We had a fantastic day, we saw a lot of different animals. Pickle and Penguin love animals and were fantastic, it was a long day but they really had a wonderful time. I think the favourite was the giraffes, it was certainly one of my favourites.

It was a really hot and sunny day, a lot of the animals look like they were enjoying the sunny weather or sitting in the shade. It was lovely to see the African Hunting dogs, it is a new exhibit and I don't remember ever seeing them before.

The elephants were having a great time throwing dust and mud on themselves to keep themselves cool. This guy looks really happy with the grass he has to munch on. I was amazed by the dexterity of their trunk as this one picked the grass and put it into his mouth before wandering over to the pool, mixing water with the dust and squirting his belly with it.

I always get mixed feelings visiting the zoo. I know that the zoos do a lot of great work, I love the excitement of the children seeing all the different animals and I know that them seeing the animals ignites their interest and enthusiasm for the animals and I hope it will go onto inspire them. I love to watch the animals myself too but I do sometimes struggle with the size of some enclosures. The animals seem so big to fit into such marginal spaces. I think they are doing work on the Sea Lion exhibit at Wipsnade and I look forward to seeing it when completed, it doesn't seem like they have a lot of space. Wipsnade is better than a lot of zoos I have seen for enclosure space, it is a pleasure to visit. I look forward to our next visit!

30 Days Wild - Day 16

Today we learnt about ants. We watched a group of ants trotting across the path and we watched them climbing a tree.

We spoke about why they might be climbing the tree. We watched them going up and down and from one nest to another across the path.

They are super hard to photograph! They are so fast and so tiny!

They were really very busy and both Pickle and Penguin were mesmerised by them. I am sure there must be a great children's story in there.

30 Days Wild - Day 15

Today we learnt about Australian animals. Pickle was sent this book:

I don't think it is available in the UK but it has a lot of different Australian animals in. We have talked about the obvious ones before, Pickle knew Koala, Kangaroo and Emu but there were a lot of animals in the book even I hadn't heard of before. 

We spoke about some of the animals and Pickle really wanted to find out more. We sat with our tablet and we went through each animal in turn and found out a little bit more about it. 

Pickle was particularly excited to learn that the Bilby pouch faces backward to prevent dirt getting in when it is digging. It was a lovely thing to sit and do together and both children learnt a lot about animals living on the other side of our beautiful planet. 

30 Days Wild - Day 13

Today we went to the Hatfield Farm and Hertfordshire Goat Sanctuary. Pickle and Penguin really love it there. Pickle in particular loves the big sand pits they have. We took buckets and spades with us and played for sometime in the sand.

Of course the idea behind the trip was to see the animals and learn a bit more about the different types. Farm animals are pretty easy so the smalls both know all their animal names and noises. I really wish they would put some better signage up at this particular farm. There are some very interesting goats with 4 horns but I have no idea what they are called.

Quite something, don't you think? I think they are fantastic.

These pigs were oh so snuffly, I don't think I have ever heard a pig do so much grunting! It was fantastic reinforcement for Penguin and her funny little pig noise.

Penguin loves the tractor trailer ride. She got so very excited! It is a nice ride to end the trip, but you really do have to be careful, the first time we went on the ride we sat on the wrong side and got a really lovely view of the hedges....

30 Days Wild - Day 10

Today we played poo sticks, walked, spotted birds and looked at cows in a field, walked outdoors, explored an adventure playground and had a picnic.
We went for a day out at Aldenham Country Park. We had a lovely walk and the kids really enjoyed the 100 acre wood and play area.

It was really nicely laid out, Pickle and Penguin loved peeping in the various characters houses. And of course Pickle jumped right in to play in the sand where Roo plays.

We spotted this heron in a nearby field! We saw a red kite too but it was high up and I couldn't catch a picture as we watched Pickle and Penguin by the reservoir.

30 Days Wild - Day 9

Do you remember these guys? 

Today we found out more about them! They are Ladybird larvae! I never knew. We learnt a lot about the lady bird life cycle using the iDial. You can find the iDials here... 

It turns out these little guys were getting ready to pupate. They are still in the same position as here but now in the Pupa stage. We will be keeping an eye on them to see if we can see them emerge as ladybirds!

30 Days Wild - Day 6

Today was a wet day. A really wet day. I didn't dare take my camera out in the rain but we did a bit of puddle splashing but decided to have a peep at some wild life cameras as our main activity.
This is the site we used. We liked the Osprey nest cam the best I think...


Later when the rain cleared up we went and looked at a couple of trees with our wild life trust iDial but I will do another post about that another day....

30 Days Wild - Day 5

We went on a mini mini beast hunt! We had a good search around in the garden to see what we could find.

I have no idea what these things are! I think they might like aphids as these plants are covered in them! We found a snail and an ant, a spider, lots of aphids, a few ladybirds and these friends. Penguin was rather pleased with her ant.

Ventura Wildlife Park

We live in Hertfordshire, UK at the moment. Not too far from us is the Van Hage flagship store in Great Amwell. We moved here around 10 months ago and heard about this place fairly early on as they had a very nice and free animal garden. The children loved visiting here and they had some interesting animals to see. Over the winter it has been closed for refurbishment, their enclosures needed a fair amount of work to repair and improve them as they have been well used and in a few cases have seemed a little crowded. 

We have missed visiting the Animal Garden as it is quite a nice little trip to get Pickle and Penguin outside and they love seeing the animals. It is also a lovely free activity as nowadays finances are always on the tight side. Anyway, they haven't given a date for when it will reopen so we decided to visit the Ventura Wildlife park which is on the Van Hage site to see what it was like. We had a lovely family afternoon out.

It was a lovely little trip. It is not very big, a modest little zoo with an enthusiastic staff. Tickets are not expensive and they have a few different animals to see with plans for expansion. The enclosures are clean and well kept and as it is a new zoo it all looks rather smart. I would recommend a visit for young ones if you have some time to spare but don't want a full day out or don't have the budget for a larger zoo. 

We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a baby wallaby sticking its little head out of its' mothers pouch. 

Not the best photo I am afraid. It is always rather tricky taking photos in zoos! We met a few animals at one of the keeper talks and saw some animals I haven't seen before. It was small enough even for Penguin to walk all the way around and she enjoyed the bird enclosures very much. 

We decided to upgrade my ticket and Pickles ticket to an annual pass so we can pop in as often as we like. Perfect for an afternoon out and as Penguin is still free I can take her whilst Pickle is at preschool!

Whilst we were getting our annual pass I had a little chat with the owner of the zoo and it was lovely to hear about how enthusiastic he is about the conservation work they are doing. I am looking forward to seeing them expand and enjoying many visits over the next year!

Me xx