11 Things to do before you go back to school...

With the summer holidays in full swing, Penrose is becoming a hub of activity. The Stables Café, open every day now, is providing visitors with welcome refreshment and the events are pulling in the crowds. Last week Squshbox theatre performed Skillywidden, a tale of Cornish Piskies and fairies, which delighted all ages in the audience. Don’t miss the next one on August 27th! 

This week Claire from Plantlife came along with an awesome array of fun activities to help everyone uncover the secret life of plants. The nature trail, which wound its way through the walled garden, included having a go at pollinating flowers with a cotton bud to understand the vital job insects do. 

We’ve also been getting creative with willow withies! Lucy from Nauti but Ice and friends delivered a brilliant workshop where we made an array of insects from butterflies to lady birds and even a fairy house. Once the basic sculpture of the insects were made we then covered them in brightly coloured tissue paper and they are now decorating our plant pots! 

Archery has proved just as popular as in medieval times and we even had to add another session to meet demand. We enjoy thinking of new ideas for events and different ways to get you outdoors but let us know if you've got any ideas for events you'd like to see at Penrose.

The ranger team at Penrose would like to say a huge thanks to everyone who’s supported our events and The Stables Café so far! As a charity all your donations and support help us to carry out vital conservation work and to maintain access on all the footpaths and cycle routes you love using. Keep checking our events listings to see what else is coming up.

And if you're wondering about the title of this post... there are 11 events listed on our summer holiday leaflet and we're over half way through already! 

Laura

Summertime and the livin' is wild!

The Wild Lizard Project has been in full flow this summer, with over 50 people attending the first Beachcraft session and Rockpool last Wednesday and the same this Wednesday it has been a busy couple of weeks. Taking place on the Lizard National Nature Reserve and managed by Natural England Kennack Sands it is a very popular beach with locals and visitors alike. We were treated to a couple of basking sharks just offshore, a spider crab, pipe fish and with one little girl having the dubious luck of catching a weaver fish they were still brilliant sessions! Having never met a weaver in person before I watched as it tried frantically to bury itself into the bottom of the bucket and bristled its notorious spines. A rather underwhelming grey speckled fish it is easy to see how it blends in with its environment and catches people unawares. The mini-raft building proved popular especially with fathers who became quite competitive with the designs and dam building of the stream, leaving the children to undertake the launching of the rafts.


Join in with more Beachcraft adventures next Wednesday meeting on the beach at 12pm for the rockpool exploration and crafts.

Rockpoolers with their wild and wonderful discoveries

Jessica, Aoife, Isaac and Noah with Jenny one of the Wild Lizard
volunteers learing how to make Neptunes Eyes

The all new very popular Bushcraft Club has also been running every Tuesday, with new exciting activities led by Sarah Henn as part of her Forest School Leader training. With real adventures taking place each day and new bushcraft skills introduced each week it is easy to see why they are fully booked. This week we went up the side of the Poltesco Valley discovering new places to build dens. The children loved exploring an area where no-one has been for years, carving out their own paths through the brambles, they remained completed unfazed by spiky plants and nettles, building their own camps in the undergrowth. Many of the children have booked in for all four sessions and are learning new exciting skills each week. This has proved a very popular venture and we certainly could have filled the places twice over which proves there really is an interest in learning more about our amazing natural environment.

 

Now it is just up to me to think up more wild and wonderful adventures to have!

Claire

Harbour Day Rescheduled

Seeing the wood for the trees

The banks of the Helford river are a haven for local wildlife from estuarine birds to rare woodland flora. This tranquil part of the Lizard peninsula offers wildlife lovers and water users alike the chance to explore and discover peaceful creeks and wooded valleys undisturbed by the bustling tourist season which is now upon us. It was here that Daphne Du Maurier composed her famous novel Frenchman’s Creek and more recently Kylie Minogue filmed her music video for Flower. Aside from its fame, the Helford area is steeped in history and home to many pockets of ancient woodland. These remaining areas of ancient woodland are bursting with biodiversity and support some of the countries rarest species such as the greater horseshoe bat which has declined by 99% over the past centuary.

Part of my role as a Ranger here on the Lizard is to look after these important woodlands to ensure they remain in a favourable condition for the wildlife that lives there. Perhaps one of the largest areas is Tremayne woods, which many of you who have spent any length of time here will be familiar with. Tremayne was originally part of the Trelowarren estate and is a linear woodland following the creek down to a Victorian stone built Quay. Initially built to receive Queen Victoria, who never came because it was raining, the Quay is now a popular picnicking and wild camping spot amongst locals and visitors to the area. We are appealing for help to undertake some urgent restoration work to Tremayne Quay, please see below.

 

Inevitably part of the life cycle of woodlands means that every year trees come down, either due to natural causes or felled as they are no longer structurally safe. This then creates glades where woodland flora and butterflies flourish and eventually new trees establish. Much of the timber that comes down is inaccessible and so is left to decay naturally creating a perfect habitat for insects and fungi.

However Tremayne, with a track running through, lends itself well to extracting some of this timber. The extracted timber is then used on the Lizard for bench tops, posts and bridges etc, with a next to nothing carbon footprint. All the timber is native hardwood and therefore has a long life span without the need to treat with chemicals or preservatives. This method is sustainable and has a very low environmental impact. Last week we spent a day with a local mobile sawmill and produced dozens of square posts and planks out of a fallen oak tree which are to be seasoned and then used across the Lizard. You can’t get more local than that, and there is a great feeling of satisfaction to see this from tree to product in a small scale, sustainable way.

Elle

The heat of the moment

Paul from West Cornwall installing a new cross drain at Ogo dour.

The Lizard team have been very busy on the ground over the last month. Its been great working in the sunshine. Much of it has been spend cutting vegetation in one way or another and its been a real challenge to keep on top of our strimming duties but we are finally catching up. I don’t have any photos of that but you can imagine what it looks like, 2 people strimming, 2 people raking (if we are lucky enough to have that luxury), lots of horse flies and a very tidy looking coast path at the end. 

The repaired and repainted sign going in at Tremayne.

Grahame our new seasonal footpath cutting employee has been strimming hard to keep up with the demand and often alone, his work has been essential. We decided that once a week we would have a charitable Grahame day where the rest of the team would work with him as he appreciates the company. I don’t blame him!

Paul and Angus installing a chestnut pailing fence into some feisty bedrock.

 In between the strimming, the volunteer team and I have been undertaking many small and interesting projects and tasks. We have replaced many of our omega signs, as the posts rot out and the paint strips off, its good to keep things looking smart and giving good indication of our ownership boundaries along the coast path.

We have been carrying out a lot of access related work and are continually replacing stiles, gates and putting in new drainage in place ready for the rain, its got to come soon right? We have had far too good a summer for it to be true. 

Carl Installing a stile on our new walk around Teneriffe Farm.

We have had a few trees down around the Helford area so we have been working on keeping the paths clear and logging up the timber for winter. Also up at Penarvon, an old barn which is found to be housing bats is slowly collapsing, an alternative roost site has been constructed nearby whilst the collapsing barn is being left and fenced off to fall apart slowly over time with no interference. 

So remember this is just the tip of the Lizard iceberg and we are doing so much work to keep things functioning, looking good and of course safe! (Safety being first though not third). Its been alot of fun and I have been looking at many exciting new projects that the volunteer team and I are soon to be taking on! Until next time :)...

Tom

The finished fence around the old barn.

Wildlife friendly farming makes a buzz at Tregullas

Colourful mustard and phacelia within the wild bird seed mix plot

If you've taken a walk around Lizard recently, you may have spied a blaze of blue and yellow adorning one of the arable fields near Housel Bay. This is a one hectare plot of wild bird seed mix, which has been planted as part of a Higher Level Stewardship Scheme covering Tregullas Farm. The area is designed to be a living bird table, growing a mix of plants with seeds that farmland birds love to eat.  The plot will be in place for two years, before being resown, somewhere else on the farm, thereby keeping a constant supply of seed available to wild birds.

buckwheat growing at Tregullas

Being the first year of our new HLS scheme, and our first experience of wild bird seed plots, we didn't know quite what to expect.  As you can see the results have been extremely colourful!  The mix includes millet, canary seed, buckwheat and sunflower. However, it is the yellow flowered mustard and purple flowered phacelia that seem to have really gone for it! Phacelia is a relative of borage, and it is a great source of nectar for insects, which then become food for birds. Even seed eating birds like cirl buntings feed their chicks insects, to give them a protein rich start in life, so more insects buzzing about are good for wildlife all round.We look forward to seeing what birds make use of this area over winter. Reed buntings would be nice, but they would be trumped by much rarer cirl or corn buntings! Both have been sighted at Tregullas in winter before, so here's hoping!

reed buntings regularly over winter at Tregullas

The HLS scheme includes lots of other measures to give wildlife a boost, including a 1/2ha fallow cultivated plot. This year this area, which is ploughed but then left unsown, is near Old Lizard Head. Although not as showy as the bird seed plot, it's a welcome space for nature with fat hen, fumitory, scarlet pimpernel and speedwells taking the leading weed roles!

Weasel's-snout within a barley field

Nearby in a corner of a barley field, a rarer arable weed is having a good year too. Weasel's-snout, or lesser snapdragon is red listed as a vulnerable species, because it has declined so much nationally, so it was great to see 20 or more plants in full flower, just where I had seen it 3 years ago - even if I did accidentally crouch in an ants nest when taking this photo!

Many thanks to local farmer Richard Dark who has done a fine job of getting the new HLS off to a great start this season, and we look forward to welcoming our new long-term tenants, Rona and Nevil Amiss and family to Tregullas in September, and an exciting future for the farm. 

Rachel

Summer Holidays

Join us for Summer holiday fun! 

If you've had enough of the local playground already and you want to try something a bit different come down to one of the events we've got on below, running on various days through the summer holidays we'll keep the kids entertained with den building, foraging and bushcraft on Tuesdays and beach games and rockpooling fun on Wednesdays! 

For a full list of summer holiday activities check out our listings in the right hand column in green, we've got loads going on for the whole family throughout the holiday period.