Looking Forward to #30dayswild

The Wildlife Trusts’ 30 Days Wild campaign starts tomorrow. This is something that I and my family really enjoyed last year so, when Northumberland Wildlife Trust asked me whether we could write something about our experiences last year we were very happy to help. I spend a lot of my time writing projects which will inspire others to enjoy and benefit from nature. Last year 30 Days Wild reminded me that sometimes I need to practice what I preach…

“We always considered ourselves to be quite a ‘wild’ family. We spend time outdoors when we can, we walk, we enjoy watching wildlife and we have a ‘wild’ (by that I mean unkempt) garden. When we heard about 30 Days Wild we thought that was something we could do. We didn’t expect that building ‘wild time’ into our routine for the whole of June would make a huge difference to us. But it did…

Taking part in 30 Days Wild not only got us outdoors everyday, it also made us make time to do something together every day. Some days we only managed a few minutes, but other times we got out in the wild for the whole day.

The least we did was lie in bed looking at shapes in the trees; the most we did was a long day walking through all weathers in the Northumbrian hills. 30 Days Wild brought us new experiences and new adventures. One day we took a ‘long cut’ home from school and walked barefoot through the fields. Another day, we set off at 8pm for a night hike which lasted until almost midnight.

We sought out the wildlife that lives around us. We explored the garden, fields, rock pools, sky, trees, meadows, river and more. We walked, hiked, looked, sketched, cooked, photographed, planted, whittled and tasted in the wild. We found bees, bugs, birds, snails, limpets, wild cattle, flowers, grasses, shadows, herons, bats, owls, otter, avocets, clouds, fledglings and so much more. Frequently we heard ourselves say, “Why don’t we do this more often?”

Are we looking forward to 30 Days Wild this June? Of course we are. There are things we want to do again and things we didn’t manage to fit in last time. We didn’t find any reptiles last year so we are definitely hoping for some sunny days to go searching for basking lizards and adders.

Katherine, Tony and Fred (8) Williams