Tuesday 28 July 2015

Bountiful Butterflies



Peacock butterfly



Seemingly like a lifetime ago, earlier last week the hot, sunny conditions were perfect butterfly and dragonfly weather for Will’s Guided Walk of the National Nature Reserve on Tuesday. The bramble and hemp agrimony flowers proved to be too hard to resist for the dozens of butterflies that were observed, and the dragonflies were out in numbers, skimming the lagoons hunting for food. The group were really were spoilt managing to see: White Admiral, Grayling, Dark Green Fritillary, Comma, Small Copper, Ringlet, Gatekeeper, Peacock, Meadow Brown, Large White and Small White butterflies; d Common Blue and Banded Demoiselle damselflies; Ruddy Darter, Four Spotted Chaser and Black Tailed Skimmer dragonflies.

Our next Guided Walk will leave from Lady Anne’s Drive at 10.00am on Tuesday 18th August, click here for more information.




Holkham’s Miniature Walled Garden at Holkham Country Fair
The butterfly theme continued on our stall at the biannual Holkham Country Fair as we had a number of activities for our younger visitors including for the really young ones counting the number of butterflies we had hidden in the Holkham Landscape display. How many can you see in the picture above? It was a great opportunity to talk to visitors about the work of the Education Team and also promote the exciting Walled Garden project ‘Beyond the Walls’ which the team will be increasingly involved in in the future.

Friday 17 July 2015

Across the age ranges!


Spoonbills
As Holkham’s National Nature Reserve has the only breeding colony of Spoonbills in the UK Will and Sue collaborated with our neighbours/colleagues at Cley Norfolk Wildlife Trust (NWT) to present a Spoonbill Workshop for adults in the fabulous new, HLF funded Simon Aspinall Education Centre. A detailed lecture on the ecology, habitats and breeding behaviour of Holkham’s fantastic Spoonbills, complete with ornithological activities and quizzes was followed by a close encounter with the birds, which fly down from Holkham to feed on the scrapes at Cley. The weather was stunning, and delegates were lucky enough to spend time watching 11 Spoonbills, including a number of recently fledged‘teaspoons’.

Woodland Art
On Monday we welcomed 100 eager pupils from Docking Primary School, who enjoyed a fun-filled day of pond dipping, woodland exploring, mini-beast hunting and a deer walk. The rain held off for most of the day and the children enjoyed some excellent views of Fallow Deer bucks and fawns, as well as finding all sorts of mini-beasts, including ladybird larvae, centipedes and woodlice. They also captured an array of awesome aquatic creatures and enjoyed watching the Barnacle Geese and their cute little goslings.
Tuesday was another day filled with learning and lots of fun, as we welcomed 129 Nursery and Reception pupils from Sheringham Community Primary School and Nursery. It was brilliant to have so many parents and carers join them for Woodland Art adventures, a tour of the Hall, pond dipping and games in the Adventure Play Area. The woodland creatures they made were absolutely brilliant and the pond dipping nets were full of fish fry, freshwater hoglice and alderfly nymphs. An action packed day ended with well-deserved ice-creams, before they headed back to school on their coaches, exhausted and happy.
 Will Clennell Education Coordinator

Friday 10 July 2015

More than just a great day out......

Peterhouse Primary School making scaled 3D maps of Holkham Estate
As our visitors are enjoying their end of term visits we are also enjoying seeing some of the brilliant follow up work that they do back at school. Highlights include Peterhouse Primary making 3D models of Holkham Estate, George White Junior School making a film about their visit & writing blog posts, Northrepps Primary School posting on their blog & tweeting about their visit & some wonderful photos from Gaywood Primary School. Art, Design Technology, English and ICT have all been used in the classroom which is great to see as during the visits we also cover Geography, History, Science, Maths and much more.


We really enjoy seeing your work & photos of your visits so please email is some photos or send us a link to you blog and/or website via either education@holkham.co.uk or via Twitter @Holkham .