30 Days Wild – wild ideas

The reason I’m a big fan of 30 days wild is because the first year I took part I found myself regularly cycling home after a day at work, realising I hadn’t done anything wild, and desperately looking at the wildlife on my journey to see what I could count as a wild thing for that day. After doing this for the best part of 30 days I got into a habit of noticing the wild things around me that I hadn’t noticed before, and this hasn’t left me since. Now when I’m out for a wander I often find I’m seeing a whole extra layer to the world that so many people I walk past are unable to see and that is a really great gift.

I guess the moral of the story is you don’t necessarily have to do a specific activity as your wild thing for the day, you just have to be aware the wild is there and take a bit of time to notice it.

Having said that, noticing things doesn’t make great tweets so if you want some tweetable activity ideas then read on!

Just be out in nature

• Go for a bike ride somewhere wild
• Visit a reserve you haven’t been to before
• Have a picnic
• Sit by a river
• See what wildlife you can find in unexpected places such as cracks in walls or pavements.
• Play a sport in your garden or a park

Taking notice and taking photos

• Take photos of something wild for each colour of the rainbow and make your photos into a rainbow collage
• Take a photo of a small insect or the inside of a flower on your phone then zoom in to the photo to see all the tiny details.
• Take a photo of a wildflower and post it on Twitter for #wildflowerhour
• Wander around your garden or a park looking closely at the plants to see what interesting insects are hiding
• Look out of the window and write down any birds and insects you can see
• Record something wild you have seen on iRecord
• Listen to the birds and see if you can identify any of them
• Listen to the sound of the rain
• When you are out in the sun shut your eyes and notice the warmth on your face.
• Spend time looking at the clouds and see what shapes they make
• Gaze at the stars and see if you can spot any constellations

Arts, crafts and homemade

• Draw a wild picture – if you want to improve your art skills you could try one of wildlife artist Rory McCann’s tutorials
• Make animal origami – WWF has a selection of patterns for different skill levels
• Collect some leaves and do some leaf crafts – Woodland Trust have several suggestions of simple crafts you can try.
• Make your own household products from the nature in your garden such as laundry detergent from ivy leaves.
• Make your own foods from nature such as elderflower cordial.
• Do a wild themed jigsaw puzzle

Help your local garden nature

• Put some food out for the birds – The Wildlife Trust BCN have a video and activity sheet for making your own bird feeder.
• Put some water out for the birds and hedgehogs – it has been a very dry May and looks set to be a dry June as well so birds and hedgehogs will benefit greatly from any water you can put out for them. You can also have some fun with this. During 30 days wild 2018, which was also very dry, I constructed a birdie aqua park by filling a deep container with water and using various objects to create platforms of different heights so birds of all sizes could find a spot to either drink, paddle or bathe.
• The Wildlife Trust BCN also has all sorts of other activities for providing food and habitat for a variety of beasties in your garden / balcony.
• Sow some wildflower seeds to help the bees – Just Bee drinks are sending out wildflower seeds for free (although you do need to send a stamped addressed envelope).

Support your wildlife charities

• Support a wildlife conservation organisation by sponsoring or adopting an animal – some charities with whom you can do this are The Wildlife Trusts, WWF, ZSL, and Durrell.
• Become a member of your local Wildlife Trust or recommend it to a friend.

Being wild indoors

See my blog 10 ways to have a wild isolation 🙂

I hope you all have an enjoyable 30 days wild and get as much out of it as I have – and I look forward to seeing all your tweets!