The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is happy to show schoolchildren around its two reserves on Speyside. Zul Bhatia is warden of the Insh Marshes Nature Reserve, which is among the most important tract of flood-plain mire in northern Britain, with a very distinctive flora and important populations of breeding and wintering birds as well as some nationally scarce mammals.
“Six o’clock in the morning is an ideal time for bird-spotting,” explains Bhatia. “It may sound early but we are up at 3.30am in the summer for fieldwork. We can cater for schools at any time of the day.”
The RSPB offers a variety of activities for school pupils and Bhatia believes there is something to stimulate every child, from primary age upwards.
“We take school parties into the woods and have various quizzes and questions. One popular activity is to give children rainbow cards and get them to find something around them in the woods that corresponds to the colour on the card. Finding something green is easy but it is more difficult to find something red. We can ask children to find something that holds water, an acorn for example, and also ask them to find something that is of no use to wild-life, like litter.”
Pond-dipping and examining the content of nets is popular with the younger pupils, while for the older children there are project sheets for identifying birds, and even a game where children are asked to invent a bird. This helps them identify what different parts of a bird are used for - long legs for wading in water, for instance - and also identify different species.
Bhatia says: “In general, we find that children are more aware of the environment than they were five or six years ago. The important thing is that everything is interlinked and ecology should not be seen in isolation.”
The RSPB also has a reserve at Loch Garten, one of the largest areas of natural pinewood in Britain, which provides different attractions including an osprey-nest observation post. “The ospreys are the main attraction for visitors,” says Bhatia, “and the best time to view them is from late April to August. Regarding birds, we still have the problems of egg-collectors in this country but there is no longer the persecution of birds in Britain that happens in some of the Mediterranean countries.”
The RSPB promotes integrating environmental education with curriculum subjects and argues that a well-planned programme will provide opportunities for pupils to discover and understand the natural processes that shape habitats and the environment.
It also helps pupils see the impact of human activities on ecological processes and the necessary use by man of renewable and non-renewable resources.
o Insh Marshes Nature Reserve, Ivy Cottage, Insh, Kingussie, Inverness-shire. Tel: 01540 661518 o Loch Garten Reserve, Forest Lodge, Nethybridge, Inverness-shire, PH25 3EF. Tel: 01479 831694
