David is a volunteer dedicated to saving lives.  For nine years now he and his dog have been working with Hampshire Search and Rescue who deal with about 60 call-outs each year.  This can be for children who've got lost or run away or for dementia sufferers who've forgotten where they live and are wandering around commons or woodlands. Recently his team spent three days looking for an Alzheimer's sufferer and eventually found her 50 miles from her home, alive and quite well. "The key objective," explains David, "is to find the missing person as quickly and efficiently as possible. When we are testing people who've been trained we expect a lot of them - they have to find three bodies in 50 acres within half an hour. Actually 7 % of missing people are found within 30 metres of a track or road." Read more...

Bees are important pollinators, especially for crops like apples.  The UK apple market is estimated at some £320 M per annum. Though current estimates vary, it is pretty much certain that this year’s apple harvest will be down, perhaps only 50% of that of a ‘normal’ year.  Though the trees produced blossom in plenty and all looked good for a ‘bumper harvest’ – it then rained and rained. Because of the weather, there were few bees, bumblebees or other pollinating insects.   This has not been a good year for bees (or indeed, bumblebees).   Why? Read more...

Soft play, football or bouncy castles are the usual birthday party options but not for Mrs Hawkins and her five year old son.  They recently attended a Robin Hood birthday party at Beeley Wood in Oughtibridge organised by Growing Wild. During their two hour adventure, the children enjoyed hunting for treasure, making bows and arrows and cooking sausages on an open fire. Read more...

Some 100 years ago, the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves (SPNR) was established through the efforts of Charles Rothschild.  Its purpose was “To urge by means of the press, by personal effort, and by correspondence with local  societies and  individuals, the  desirability of preserving  in perpetuity  sites suitable f or nature reserves, which  sites are to be handed over to the National Trust under special conditions “  Charles was the son of the first baron Rothschild and a member of the banking dynasty. Read more...

The mighty plans of men and beasts continue unabated with hiccups and head aches aplenty. Initial development, towards my utopian woodland haven, has taken its first faltering steps. A sixty metre fish pond has been excavated by Edward the Volvo digger man (is that advertising?) and to my eyes closely resembles, in all its murky watered splendour, a part of the Grand Canal in Venice, however an ex sea going friend tells me it looks more like the Suez Canal between Al Kantara and the Bitter Lakes, with trees. Each to their own, say I. The recent rains have caused havoc with the continuing plans for this feat of civil engineering because it flooded up rapidly before I could install some piping Read more...