Stay home, stay wild

Winter can seem hard to get through at the best of times, but with the current restrictions on top, Cumbernauld Living Landscape feel it’s time to offer local people a whole load of safe, fun, nature-based activities to help see us all through.

Our Stay Home, Stay Wild schedule started on Monday, and offers local people of all ages a whole range of activities, with something to do, watch or learn about every day. To start the week the team is bringing back the very popular Lockdown Hour. Trainees Teri Grieve and Katie Brown will post pics on the Cumbernauld Living Landscape Twitter feed of local wildlife they’ve spotted on their own lockdown walks each week, and invite people to add their own comments and sightings via a round-up on Facebook each Monday.

Weekly activity booklets will be published here on our website on Fridays, and will each focus on a local wildlife site. The first one, coming out on 29 January, will be based around St Maurice’s Pond, and will include a self-led walk, a wildlife spotting guide, and a treasure trail to make things fun for the whole family.

There will be free online Nature Chats every second Thursday, with experts invited to tell us more about some of the species and habitats that make Cumbernauld such a great place for wildlife. The first one, Hedgehogs, Biodiversity and Citizen Science, is on 4 February, 1pm, when TCV’s Kirsty Crawford will be talking about their Hogwatch programme, and how you can get involved.

Teri and Katie are also developing a series of crafty videos which will air every second Tuesday, starting with a hedgehog-themed session on 9 February, 1pm. The videos will also be available to watch via the website afterwards.

Finally there will be some live weekend wildlife watching sessions. The first, on Sunday 31 January, 1pm, ties in with the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch, when you can join project officer Paul Barclay to watch the birds in his garden, and get help identifying them.

Details of how to sign up for online events will be posted on Cumbernauld Living Landscape’s Facebook and Twitter feeds, and on the website, where you’ll also find an up-to-date schedule as it develops. Everything is free, and open to all, so people can dip in and out of whatever they fancy, whenever they’re looking for some inspiration to stay home, but stay wild!