The sea starts here

According to a Scottish Government report last year, an estimated 300 million plastic straws, 276 million pieces of plastic cutlery, 50 million plastic plates and 66 million polystyrene food containers are used in Scotland every year. With a population of around 50,000, that means that here in Cumbernauld we are using three million straws a year, 2,760,000 pieces of plastic

Helping Cumbernauld’s amazing bogs

Cumbernauld Living Landscape’s amazing volunteers are out once again helping to manage and improve local greenspaces. You might even have seen our Nature Ninjas in Ravenswood Local Nature Reserve last week, working away in the blazing sunshine. Our first task was improving the access ways around the park. This included cutting back some of the over-hanging long grass and the

Taking Care Of Our Greenspaces

Local resident Kate Fromings has written this guest blog about why we should take better care of the town’s greenspaces.  In Cumbernauld we are incredibly lucky to have the use of a plethora of greenspaces. No matter which side of the town you reside in, there’s a piece of nature just minutes from your front door. Abronhill has Forest Wood,

A bug’s eye view of volunteering

We were marching through the woods. The sun bursting through the trees, the cold air sucked into our lungs. My volunteers had entered a new area of Cumbernauld Glen; unveiled before their eyes. In this space they saw what first appeared to be a void; the last vestiges of winter still clinging onto the forest. I prompted them to take

Leave no trace

The Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Seafar Wildlife Reserve is one of my favourite places in Cumbernauld to visit. The Trust is working hard to change the structure of the woodlands, helping native trees and wildflowers to flourish in the new light, open spaces. More native trees and flowers means more insects like butterflies and dragonflies, which in turn leads to more

What can we do about rubbish?

Litter. Everyone hates it, and yet it remains one of our biggest environmental problems. From the cigarette ends and dog poo bags to fly-tipped furniture, it seems like litter is everywhere in our woodlands, parks and streams. No doubt you’ll have heard aware of the waste epidemic in ours sea, but did you know that an estimated 80% of this marine

The work never stops for our Nature Ninjas

This weekend on Sunday 3 March Cumbernauld Living Landscape has a volunteer day from 12-4pm at Cumbernauld Glen reserve, as part of our Creating Natural Connections project. Our Nature Ninja volunteers have a number of tasks to do this year, such as trimming back the snowberry, removing grass and overgrown weeds, and clearing leaves off the path. Keeping the path

Summer Days

After the warm weather in early summer you might be forgiven for thinking autumn had arrived early recently. It’s been a topsy-turvy year weather wise and there’s no doubt that some parts of nature are as confused as I am. Early summer plants like cowslips are coming back into flower over recent weeks and I’m still seeing breeding behaviour going

Not so fantastic plastic

If you’re a nature lover like me then you were probably glued to your TV during Blue Planet 2. The new findings from this series have been incredible, from attaching cameras to whale-sharks to help find where they give birth to their pups, to the first ever footage of an amazing fish that preys on seabirds. However, the last show