Eco Holidays

posted by Catherine on Sep 22

If your kids are always asking how long until we get home – think on your feet!

There is plenty going on in the countryside even when it all looks a bit bleak – maybe not noticable to us adults who are just thinking about the weather and the route back to the car.

But to the kids; the autumn cold weather and wildlife is nothing but one huge adventure!

So here are a few things that might inspire you to think about the fun side of things. Maybe walk less distance and do more things – that way you can keep the kids happy rather than constantly making them catch you up!

Don’t Leave The Leaves:
Plan to gather up all the leaves you can find that have fallen from trees into one great big pile – and then run through them kicking them up in the air! This game is so easy to play over and over again!

Autumn Gathering:
Why not use the opportunity to search the woodland floor for branches and twigs to build a secret den? There are no wildflowers in the way; just leaves, moss and building materials!

photo credit: Steve-h

Counting Conkers:
Depending on the woods – there should be plenty of conkers for you to collect – still in their spikey shells! Once you have a winner (and some string) you can set up your own tournament!

Searching For Seeds:
It’s not just conkers you will find – there are hazelnuts, acorns, berries and even helicopters! Why not try to guess which ones need to be eaten by animals and which ones float in the wind!

Puddles And Painting:
Find some different coloured berries, grasses and muds and mix up your own paint pot to make your own autumn scene – using real leaves and twigs if you want!

Get Lost!
Why not set up a treaure trail using chalk marks, wooden arrows and leaf designs. Follow the clues through the woods to the treasure – hopefully a nice picnic!

And – it doesn’t cost a penny or require any great planning!

posted by Catherine on May 31

Why take your safari in the same place as everybody else if you don’t have to?

Kenya, South Africa and Botswana get all the coverage with the big names for Safaris – but there is plenty to see in less visited countries – so don’t overlook places like Uganda and Rwanda too fast.

Not to name drop but you would be missing out on Bwindi Inpenetrable National Park and it’s mountain gorillas; both the Congo and the Nile rivers; the Great Rift Valley; and Lake Victoria.

When you are choosing an African adventure, make sure you give the less well known companies and countries their fair share of your attention and subsequently your funding. If we want to show countries that it is worth them keeping something – then we have to pay them in return.

And that is what your eco friendly travel plans should consider – what benefit does your vacation have on the people you spend it with – and those people you don’t spend it with?

So, here is a little bit of information on these 2 countries to show that there is plenty of Africa to see without sitting in a coach filled with 30 other tourists all looking at the same sleeping lion or baby elephant!

Uganda:
Home to an estimated 50% of the World’s mountain gorillas as well as chimpanzees, 120 species of mammals, 250+ species of butterflies and 360 species of birds in the Bwindi alone – making this site one of the richest and most diverse wildlife site in East Africa (beating Kenya hands down!).

photo credit: Kabacchi

It also has over 200 species of tree, 100+ ferns and 86 species of orchid! A plant lovers dream location too then!

In total there are 9 National Parks in Uganda – so you won’t be short of a wildlife adventure or two for your efforts.

There are a variety of habitats including wetlands, marshes, mountains and cloud forests to explore as well as 40 different languages to discover amongst the 4 main areas of the country.

And due to its high altitude and rings of mountains it is cooler than other countries on the equator – as well as being less prone to tropical diseases than many of it’s neighbours – always a bonus for the traveller!

Rwanda:
After being in the news for everything but it’s wildlife and culture – why not take a look at the eco adventures on offer in this less visited country. After all, gorilla safaris are this countries leading tourist attraction!

There are habitats here ranging from active volcanos in the Virunga mountains, through rolling hills, savannah, plains and swamps as well as all the lakes that fill this part of the Great Rift Valley.

There are only 3 National Parks here – but you won’t be disappointed with the wildlife: gorillas, giraffes, forest elephants, 14 species of primate and over 700 species of bird.

The people of Rwanda all belong to one ethnic group and so share a common history and culture, including dance, music and story-telling – as well as shared and local arts and crafts.

Eco Adventures:
These 2 countries border each other (as well as Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo) so you could easily travel between them all on an overland tour – either with an organised group or independently depending on your needs (overland tour buses don’t usually have toilets!).

So when you are planning your Safari Holidays - don’t look to the same old same old – think of something new and you might just have the best safari ever!

Following your heart – not the tour bus rules……

posted by Catherine on May 24

As part of the ‘Making Wildlife Watching Easy’ series: Swifts, Swallows and Martins

These summer arrivals in Northern Europe offer a great aerial spectacle! Hardly landing anywhere, they glide, swoop and screech over our heads across the summer sky picking out all the little insects floating past!

But with them so high in the sky – usually in silhouette as the sun shines in your face added to their fast flying – how can you tell them apart?

Well the answer is ‘easily if you know what to look for’.

So, what is the difference between swifts, swallows and martins? It’s all down to the shape of their wings and tail to start, then you can use their colour if you are close enough.

The pictures in this article aren’t the best – but this shows how tricky they are a catch a glimpse of visually – that’s why their key features and their flying habits are so important.

The most easy to spot in the sky without any problems is the swift with its long curved-back wings – so it looks a bit like it has a boomerang strapped to it’s back!

photo credit: Michael Woodruff

Once you can spot this – that is the swift out of the way – then it’s down to the swallow and the different martins.

Visually, there are key things to look out for and can easily be seen on a photo – but in flight, this is easier said than done!

If we start with the swallow, then at least we can eliminate it from the list early on with 1 key feature: long tail ‘ribbons’.

In flight, these birds have a clear pair of much longer tail feathers coming off each fork of their tail. These aren’t so clear from a distance or in juvenile swallows – but if you can see them – then you know you have a swallow not a martin or swift!

photo credit: Mostly Dans

Swallows also have a white body in flight – as do the martins – but if they are close enough to you or perched, you can clearly see their reddish chin and blue neck-band.

However, the 2 most common martins in Europe are the sand and house – and are a bit tricky to tell apart in flight unless they obligingly fly close by you and you can see their colouring clearly: the house martin is blue with a noticable white rump (as shown below); and the sand martin is brown without the white rump.

photo credit: ahisgett

I know this sound obvious in writing, but observing it as the birds flip and flap around the swarm of insects they are feeding on is a little tricky!

But saying that – house martins nest on houses and sand martins nest in banks of sand – usually in large groups and on tall banks of around 5-10 meters in height. So if it flies up into the eaves of your roof it won’t be a sand martin, and if it is flying around a steep-sided river bank in groups it probably is a sand martin!

photo credit: zakwitnij

And if you aren’t sure – take a load of pictures; as even if they are distant or blurry you will still be able to see which they are on closer inspection!

Especially true if you are in southern Europe or elsewhere around the globe – as there are around 83 species of birds in this ‘family’ that it could be!

Another days bird-watching done!

posted by Catherine on Apr 27

Would you know what to do if you found an unconscious person while out on a walk?

How about if a friend of yours just suddenly fainted, cut themselves, feels unwell, or had a burn? If you said no – or aren’t sure, then you should think about going on an Emergency First Aid course.

Many people only do a First Aid course because they ‘have to’ for work or volunteering – but why should we be forced to do it? Why haven’t you thought about saving your family and friends in an emergency rather than having to help a random person who happened to visit your shop or office?

Why do we wait to be asked to learn such and important skill – we should be climbing over each other to get on a course!

And it isn’t about what to do with the casualty either – it is about assessing your needs as well as those of the patient. And your actions also affect the emergency services and complete strangers who could be 30 miles away from you.

How? Well think of the larger picture as well as just your little part in it.

Just You:
Before helping anyone in an emergency situation – you should check that you are safe to help in the first place – there is no point you getting injured, electrocuted, trapped, burned or drowned as well as the casualty! And if you do get hurt – who will be there to help you?

Don’t forget that 999/911/122 calls will get routed through to the emergency services even if you are in an area with no mobile coverage – so if in doubt about your safety – call them first for advice.

The Casualty:
If you can get to them safely – then you need to assess them before you call the emergency services – as you will need to know a bit more about them. For example, if they are not breathing at all – then those first few minutes could be vital to their survival, so don’t waste them trying to make a phone call!

And you might find that they are not that seriously hurt or were just sleeping! Needless to say that if you do call out a helicopter or ambulance for someone who ends up telling you that they were just sleeping or drunk – you have wasted a lot of peoples time and resources.

photo credit: Artotem

The Complete Stranger:
He was just in his garden at home when he started getting chest pains – they didn’t go away when he laid down so he struggled to the phone to call an ambulance as he thought he was having a heart attack.

He speaks to the emergency staff and they tell him that they will be there as soon as they can – but they know that their last ambulance is on its way to that collapsed casualty in the woods 15 miles away.

Your casualty turns out to be hung-over while that complete stranger is getting worse! There are a limited number of emergency vehicles in any one area – so make sure that you don’t waste their resources by calling them for a non-emergency.

The Emergency Services:
Obviously if you find an unconscious person anywhere who is not responding to your loud voice or a firm shoulder pat (as they could be deaf) – then you should clear their airways and make sure that they are breathing and then call the emergency services for advice.

However, you must assess their situation first to be of most help to them. They have been trained to save lives and have the equipment to do so – but if they are 20 miles away from the casualty then they can’t do their job.

There are also alternative emergency advice solutions – particularly if the casualty is conscious and not in a life-threatening situation. Taking them to one of the many minor injuries or illness clinics is a great first option, calling NHS Direct (UK only) can answer many of your questions and advise you of the best course of action.

But nothing beats getting your own skills in Emergency First Aid – that way you can help your friends and family immediately – and offer the correct help to others in need.

You’ll never regret taking the course – only not taking it.

posted by Catherine on Apr 10

Throw out that traditional ‘city’ guidebook – write your own eco adventure guide!

We all try to make sure that we see the oldest church, tallest tower, biggest fountain or a giant shoe – but what about the landscapes surrounding us? Do you find out where the local wildlife lives? Where the local people go and relax or where the more remote landscapes off the tourist trail are?

If not – then you aren’t having an eco adventure – you are having the same ‘adventure’ as a thousand other tourists who passed by.

By finding out a bit more about your destination first, you can discover so much more when you are travelling – and will have a better eco holiday that you ever imagined.

The Landscapes:
It might sound boring to research the rock types and weather patterns of your holiday destination – but by finding out things like whether the rock is ‘hard’ (granite) or ‘soft’ (limestone) you would know whether there would be a lot a water on the surface, the likelihood of caves and what plants and animals you could see.

photo credit: DaveBleasdale

For example softer more porous rock types like chalk and limestones don’t hold water so will be reasonably dry landscapes and any water features will usually be seasonal or man-made. And this affects the wildlife and plants you will find.

Other rock types might produce totally different effects and environmental diversity – which could make for some very interesting places to visit on your vacation.

The Locations:
By looking at the niche habitats and weather patterns – you could find out where the most pleasant places to visit are.

You may well avoid India in the monsoon, and the Caribbean during the hurricane season – so why visit a desert at the hottest time of day, or a tropical coastal location before the afternoon sea breezes come in?

Locals know all the secrets to making the most of the day – so if the locals don’t go out until the afternoon – you know to copy them! What do they do instead and where do they do it?

I remember when I first went to Malta I was back in my flat by 6pm and stayed in all night as I was totally knackered from all that sun. But 1 night I needed something important, so popped back out to the shop and found the entire local population out on the boulevard socialising!

Kids on bikes, couples, babies in strollers and games of chess all going on – there wasn’t a single seat free for about 2 miles of promenade! I had wondered why the prom was so wide with so many benches when I hardly ever saw anyone there – but of course it was too hot during the day to sit in the sun!

Learning a bit more about somewhere isn’t so hard – and then you could find you get a lot more from the experience.

posted by Catherine on Jan 23

Nothing beats actually doing something – so book yourself on a course.

If you are one of those people who says ‘oh, I’ve always wanted to do that…’ then you need to start doing them!

Sometimes they are such simple things, like going to a local castle, walking along a certain coast, climbing a certain mountain – all of which are usually free, but we never seem to fit them in, even though they are so simple to do.

Other things people might not get round to are new skills – or improving existing skills – where courses can be free, or the cost going to a great cause.

You will never learn how to identify fungi unless you get out there and actually search for them; learning bird calls is impossible without listening to the birds themselves and you certainly can’t learn how to manage a woodland, divert a stream or grow your own food from just reading a book!

Local Courses:
So, by booking yourself on to a course with a local agency, charity or organisation, you will finally get around to achieving something outdoorsy and eco friendly – and have a great time learning!

Build You Own Bug House

Here I have listed some courses and talks that I have found available in local advertisings – things that you could easily do:

Sustainable Building Talk – Local Permaculture Group:
Spend the morning listening to a talk by a leading local expert with a Q&A session – and then have a tour of an existing sustainably built and run eco house and get to see what is working where inside and outside.

Make Your Landscape Photography Come Alive – Local Wildlife Trust:
An intensive 1-day course for landscape photography for beginners and improvers. A few hours in the class room first thing to cover the basic settings, composition and equipment – then out in the field to experiment with emotion, light and adding your own style.

Basic Bushkraft – Local Independant Adult Ed Centre
Covering an array of outdoor skills – you will spend the day with adults all experimenting with basic survival skills. These skills include; green wood-working, shelter building, fire lighting, knots and cooking.

A Weekend With A View – Local Youth Hostels
Stay for 2 days at a local Youth Hostel in a picturesque location – with activites and walks planned throughout. Explore the local area and landscapes with your guide before settling down for group dinner and stories in the evening. Wake up to fresh air and a great breakfast and then head off on more adventures till hometime!

There Is Something For Everyone:
Even if none of those sound like your kettle of fish, then hunt around for other adventures to get you outside and exploring – and hopefully learning a new skill along the way.

Whether its an evening with badgers or bats, woodland or heathland ecology, an introduction to beekeeping or butterflies, or maybe rock pools, painting, basketry and bryophytes! You can always find something you like.

So, no more excuses – do what you have always wanted to do!

posted by Catherine on Dec 10

Have you ever seen your local woodland or riverbanks coated in the morning frost?

We all love walking in the woods, on the Downs, through the valleys, on the moors, along the coast and beside the rivers – but have you done it first thing on a winters morning?

There are some scenes you just won’t see in the normal run of things out with the kids or walking the dog – you need to make the effort to get out there really early for a people-free, wildlife-filled and weather dependant great view.

Being first up on top of a frosty hillside and seeing the low clouds rolling over the sides is priceless.  And watching herons feed in the misty waters first thing could make you see your local walk in a new light.

Local Tours:
There are always local organisations and charities offering winter walks at this time of year – and many of them are themed so you can choose the one that most appeals. 

For example some are about the wildlife, some about the landscapes and some about the history surrounding us – some are even one-offs like a festive wreath walk, where you get to cut your own holly and ivy etc, and then are helped to create your own designs for your home!

And needless to say, these walks are great in 2 main respects; the first being that they are run by an expert.  You won’t just be wandering around the usual footpaths with a group of people aimlessly – you will be led to all the main features and given specific information about plants, animals, people and the past.

These guides will be well aware of everything in local area and will be able to answer most of your questions there and then as they would have a passion for it – otherwise they wouldn’t offer to do the walk in the first place!

photo credit: maxim off

Secondly, they will be able to take you to places that you might not have been to before – such as on to private land, through farms and fields that the general public don’t have access to.  For example, there are huge areas of land that are owned by wildlife trusts which are kept free from the everyday general public as essential work is carried out or sensitive areas where animals are being surveyed/preserved/introduced.

Taking a tour with these charities or groups that have agreements with local landowners and farmers can allow you a new view of the same landscape - or access to rare or protected habitats.

Feel Encouraged:
Of course, noone really wants to get up in the dark on your day off – but if you have signed up to one of these walks or are aware of it – then you are more likely to get up and out.

The photo opportunities on these walks are huge as well as the possible wildlife sightings.  I mean you may well be there before all the morning dog walkers – so you are more likely to see some of the more shy native wildlife – and even hungry owls hunting for those few extra hours in the cold.

If you are a duvet diva – make sure you arrange to get a lift off someone or pick someone else up on your way - that way you can’t talk yourself out of it when the alarm goes off!

posted by Catherine on Nov 19

Rather than investing in gold or oil – why not invest in the planet?

When you have some ‘spare’ money – you tend to run to the bank with the best APR or whatever – planning for your future obviously.

But aren’t you forgetting about what ‘investment’ actually means?

If the money at the end of your pension is all you want to invest in – then I hope you don’t mind giving up a few things along the way; like rainforests, rural communities, biodiversity and everything else that we are trying to save at the moment!

What sort of holiday do you think you will be spending all your savings on when you retire in 30 years if the sea levels have risen, all the coral has died, countries are at war over resources and people in the developing world can’t afford to eat?

The Baddies?
Well, that would be you wouldn’t it?  Big ‘Bad’ businesses still need to go on - I mean we still need oil and coal to run just about everything we own at the moment (just think of everything you need that doesn’t need or run on electricity or petrol/diesel)!  So at the minute they are not baddies through choice – but you are.

You can make a decision to spend your money on green and eco investments and technologies – and by doing so you are helping to make the alternatives the new mainstream.  If people want change then businesses will make changes.

We take care to only buy things that we approve of, and check whether it’s sustainable, fair trade or organic – but we seem to forget this all when we use banks! 

Think Ahead:
By asking your bank or financial advisor where your money will be invested – or actually seeking out an eco investment in the first place – you could actually be making your future a whole lot better.

Like with timber schemes.  By using your ‘spare’ money to grow hectares and hectares of young trees for timber you will not only be making a nice return on your investment – you will also be preserving that woodland and the animals and plants that live there and creating a carbon sink (where the growing trees absorb and store CO2 from the environment).  It will also be creating a sustainable and natural supply of building materials as well as a whole host of employment opportunities.

And of course, if you are using this land for wood production – then you don’t need to raid wood from actual forests.  By growing a variety of soft and hardwoods from scratch – you can divert attention away from illegally logging ancient woodlands and raiding pristine forests.

Kerr-ching!

posted by Catherine on Nov 12

If you take packaging out on a walk with you – it could become litter in a gust of wind!

Looking at the types of litter left strewn across the countryside these days – it’s quite easy to see how it could be avoided.

‘More Litter Bins’ some of you shout out – but you would be wrong.  Well, wrong in the eco sense, as litter bins actually create more litter by being there – as well as a possible fire hazard, foreign body in the natural world, eyesore, potential disease harbourer as well as the huge – and rather unnecessary energy costs involved with creating, locating, emptying and maintaining every litter bin.

Yes, a dog poo bin has all the same energy costs – but you really can’t avoid creating or disposing of dog poo – other than not having a dog in the first place.  Even if you feed you dog premium dry food to reduce the volume of stool created – they will still need to ‘go’ several times a day.

However, human litter outside can be almost totally avoided – and there are easy things you can do to make sure that it is not you and your family creating it!

Reduce The Amount:
Since when did we need to wrap up a sandwich/roll/wrap/pastry in clingfilm or foil?  Not only is it a non-reusable wrapping option, it may well cause your sandwich etc, to get squished!

Depending on where you are storing your lunch – this could be a problem.  Both foil and clingfilm aren’t air-tight – and will result in your food being loosely distributed around your bag!

And why do we now need cheese wrapped up in it’s own little packet instead of just a lump of cheese?

A lot more people are now buying in bulk – so using more lunch boxes is getting quite the trend!  A box of raisins and a box of cucumber slices inside a large lunchbox with your chicken wrap!

The Take Home Effect:
By making your lunch worth more to you – you are also increasing the chances of taking all your litter home.

For example, you aren’t going to throw your lunch boxes away in the countryside are you – whereas if you were left sitting outside with a screwed up piece of foil in your hand with mayo all over it – you aren’t likely to want to put in in your pocket and take it home are you?  Same goes for any left-over food and other packaging.

Food is messy – so what better solution than a sealed in, solid, airtight plastic tub to store it all in until you get to a bin?

I myself wouldn’t want to carry home a banana skin in my bag or an empty crisp packet in my pocket due to the mess this could cause – but if you haven’t taken a rubbish bag or lunchbox with you to put them in – then I can see why some people would just throw them away.

The Worst Part?
Having seen the results of litter droppers all over the countryside – I have noticed that they seem to share a common trait – they throw it away from them rather than just drop it on the floor.

Now as you can imagine, they do this so that no one can obviously see that the litter is where they just were and so can’t lay the blame on them – but off the path, over a hedge, into a bush and under a tree are the worst places to leave you rubbish.

Not only will it be more difficult there to be picked up by passers-by – but it could quite well go unnoticed by local volunteers and litter-pickers for months or even years. And in that time it is a constant threat to wildlife and the environment.

Whether it is a tin or bottle that could trap a mammal, a string or thread which could get caught around a birds leg or a material that degrades down and release chemicals into the water table!

Box it, bag it or bin it!

posted by Catherine on Oct 12

Would you rather donate a few pounds now – or be left at sea?

Did you know that UK lifeguards are not paid staff? Did you also know that they receive no Government funding at all?

And, did you know that they offer their services to people in need absolutely voluntarily? 24 hours a day, 365 days a year!

As a result, they can only buy, run and maintain their lifesaving equipment with funds raised from public and private donation.

Your Eco Adventures:
Now it’s not just people on boats who might need the services of the coastguard – they help rescue all sorts of people from all sorts of places.  I mean you don’t even need to be in the water!

Day trippers on the beach might get caught out by a fast incoming tide, pets and people can sometimes slip over the top of a low cliff and get caught on a ledge, rock pool dippers might slip and twist their ankle or people might just happen to get ill while out on a pier.

If the land-based emergency services can’t get their transport to you – then the coastguard gets called in!

Now – we all take our ambulances for granted.  If we get ill when we are out and about, we just assume that a paramedic will get to us in just a few short minutes.  But when you are in a place with no roads near by – they just can’t come.

So if your eco adventures could take you off the beaten track and anywhere near the coast, harbours, large rivers or out to sea – then you need to think about your health and safety.

photo credit: Reiner Schubert

Make It Safe:
Obviously, there are plenty of things you can do to make sure that you avoid having problems in the first place by planning ahead and learning how to maintain your boat or other equipment – but there is more:

1) Make sure that you have had training in using all the equipment you are going to need for your adventure that day.

2) Make sure that all your equipment is correctly fitted for you.  If you are borrowing someone else life belt/boat/ropes etc – make sure that you have checked them before you leave to fit you personally.  You move the mirrors and seat when you borrow someone else car – so check that everything else you borrow fits before you start out.

3) Make sure that someone on land knows where you are going that day.  Not only when you are leaving, who with, where from and with what – but also how long you will be, where you will end up and how they can contact you if they need to.

4) Plan to be back on dry land or away from the water/coast before the tide comes in or it gets dark.  If you don’t know exactly what time it gets dark, or exactly what time the tide changes – then don’t go!

5) Make sure you take all precautions necessary – don’t forget that something you might think is ‘fun’ could end up dragging over 30 rescue workers out to sea to come help you – when you could have just planned to do that next time when you had more planning.  Spontaneity at sea or on cliffs is plain stupid!

See Into The Future:
Know how to guess things in advance!  Now I know that all accidents that the coast guards attend are not always through direct human error – but there are signs when something is about to go wrong.

If someone on your boat starts to become ill, feels unwell (other than sea sick), the weather changes, you notice a small problem with the boat, a friend isn’t quite as good at navigation or boatmanship as they told you – head for home.

Regardless of whether you think you will be fine – think of the worse case scenario.  Could that person become really ill soon and you are even further from safety?  Is that small problem your emergency back-up?  So what happens if the main part fails now?  Your friend took you too far to the right or left, or too close to that shingle bank or cliff edge.

You have all seen programs on TV and in the movies where you can see whats about to happen, but everyone just wants to have fun – no body wants to be the person who turns home early on – but no doubt, they have never had to call out the coastguard!

Your Eco Friendly Insurance Policy:
When you go abroad, you take out an insurance policy to make sure that paramedics will come a help you if you get injured.

When you drive a car – you take out insurance and get a recovery policy to make sure that someone can come a fix your car if you get in an accident.

So why not pay out for a coastguard policy if you like to have fun around water or the coast?  If you donate a few pounds (or more) a year – then you are helping to guarantee that there are always men and women around the country who will drop everything – even in pitch black and bad storms – to come and help you out.

And all for free!

It’s all well and good thanking them after they save you, and raising money as a ‘Thank You’ – but if we don’t support them BEFORE we need them – they might not be there anymore!

If they don’t raise more in donations than the cost of keeping their boats on the water and helicopters in the air – then the boats will have to go, and it will take them longer to respond to your 999 call – and longer to get you to safety.

So how long do you want to be floating in the cold sea – Or clinging to that steep ledge?