My son came running in to fetch me this morning telling me that a bird had crashed into the window. When I arrived in the room, the bird’s impression could be clearly seen on the glass. It was a pigeon (I could tell by the dead pigeon in my front garden), and it was being chased by a small bird of prey: a kestrel or more likely, a sparrowhawk, when it crashed.
The Big Draw – Saturday 18th October, 10am- 1pm
We are holding another Big Draw event on the blue hoardings near St James’ Church, Church Lane (where we did it last year). The broad theme this year is to create a giant East Cowes Town portrait and is your chance to make your mark on the hoardings.
The Big Draw is a nationwide event which aims to get everyone drawing, it’s fun, free and not about being a superb draughtsman but about having a go, so bring the family and get stuck in. All pens, pencils, papers etc will be provided.
All young children must be accompanied by an adult and if it’s wet we’ll reschedule for another day.
Couldn’t finish the summer without giving our red squirrel a mention. Thanks to the series of Really Wild Fridays at Robin Hill, our furry friend had a weekly outing during the summer holidays amd made lots of new friends.
To celebrate the successful completion of the first stage of the Pan Growing Spaces Project, Medina Housing Association and Island 2000 in association with several Pan community groups staged an end of season Pan Garden Show.
The show included a plants and seeds stall, a veg swap table, a bouncy castle, bug hunt and face painting for the children, recipe ideas and gardening advice, plus cream teas and home-made vegetable soup. And it wouldn’t have been a garden show without a bit of competition, and the the entries came pouring in from local residents keen to show off the results of their labours at their raised beds. 
Who could resist the chance to compete in categories such as ugliest veg, rudest veg, pimp your produce and vegetable most like its owner. My favourite entry was this pair of carrots pimped up as Jordan and Peter Andre.
Finally, the afternoon wouldn’t have been complete without a visit from the giant Pan carrot, usually to be seen roaming the allotments at dusk looking for carrot company, but taking a rare daylight outing lured by the scent of a table full of home-grown.
The team have been doing a wonderful job at Robin Hill throughout August running Really Wild Fridays. One of the events on offer is a minibeast hunt followed by a look at all the fab things collected under a microscope (actually a USB plug-in through a laptop and then projected onto a big screen for all to see - very effective). The bugs are caught using sweep nest and then safely collected up in pooters ( pots with straws in and out for sucking up insects - just make sure you use the right straw). In the close quarters and confines of the pooter pot however all manner of carnage can ensue which of course only makes the spectacle the more fascinating! Here you can see a voracious Damsel Bug about to puncture a spider with its wicked-looking rostrum: a stabbing, hollow beak for sucking out insides. Yummy.
We’re working on a restoration plan for a splendid roadside verge site at Arreton that’s become rather overgrown. It still has an excellent flora though and one of its many specialities is the lovely Blue Fleabane, not at all a common plant on the Island.
This summer the Education and Community Team have been let loose in RobinHill every Friday, leading the Really Wild Friday events at Robin Hill. Robin Hill is a very poular tourist attraction set in 88 acres of beautiful Island woodland, and we laid on a host of fun and free activities throughout the day. The most popular activity was a Wilderness Survival session at the gipsy camp in the woods for all budding Ray Mears. We provided tarpaulins and string for family groups to create their own bivouacs using 
the natural materials
found in the woods.
Families threw themselves into this activity with gusto, and over the summer we saw some brilliant and innovative structures being created. After finishing their shelters Danny held a fire lighting workshop, demonstrating different ways of lighting fire without using matches. Each family group was then given a fire lighting kit to try and get their own fire going. Groups with successful fires were rewarded with a round of marshmallows to toast.
We also ran “hands-on with nature” arts and crafts down at the Really Wild Stage, making magic woodland wands
, dream catchers and paper kites, using a mixture of natural, recycled and scrap store materials.
As the finishing touch to the improvements on the Lukely Brook at St Cross Mill in Newport, the Newport Rivers Group have commissioned and installed a decorative kingfisher perch.
Before the in-channel improvements, kingfishers were regularly seen on this stretch of the river, but during the recent works all debris was removed from the channel.
The Newport Rivers Group commissioned local artist Dave Badman to design and install this unique and beautiful reedmace sculpture which will also act as a resting perch for kinfishers.
The sculpture can be seen adjacent to Halfords car park in Newport.
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