Sandra Norval’s Blog

I’ve just spent a lovely afternoon putting up a Christmas Tree. No, it’s not in my front room, nor is it covered in tinsel.

 It’s one of around 50 trees being decorated by community groups local to St Albans for the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust ‘Festival of Trees’. This particular tree represents the Verulam Writers’ Circle (VWC to those of us ‘in the know’!).

 I haven’t decorated a tree for several years, mainly due to piles of text books in my lounge whilst studying my degree, so I’m a little out of practice. Thankfully a flash of non-writing inspiration struck just at the right moment. I’ve used pens and pencils along with the expected baubles and bells and topped it all off with a parchment scroll and quill. The tags either show details of VWC or book covers of our published writers.

Loads of people were there decorating their own trees and already the feedback has been brilliant! The other trees are all gorgeous too, lots of wonderful ideas and such a lovely way to find out more about what is going on in the area.

So, a couple of pictures are attached, hopefully you’ll agree the results were rather pleasing!

If you are interested in writing, VWC is the circle of choice and Get Writing 2010 is the perfect place to learn how to develop your skills.

 www.vwc.org.uk

If you fancy spending a couple of hours browsing around these wonderful trees the Festival will be open to the public on December 5th and December 6th between 10am and 4pm. There is also the opportunity to meet the HMWT Badger who will be in his festive sett, taking a break from his winter hibernation!

Check out the poster attached: Festival of Trees poster

Yesterday I spent an amazing day at the Knebworth House Halloween Pumpkin Trail event.

I was helping out on a stall with the Herts & Middlesex Bat Group providing information on Hertfordshire’s bats. We were even able to introduce the public to some real live bats.

Before anyone panics, they are captive because they wouldn’t survive in the wild and are only handled by experienced bat experts with licences. Any bats that have a chance of fending for themselves are released as soon as they are fit enough, that’s just one of the functions of the Bat Group.

We got lucky with the weather and despite a heavy downpour the night before by 12 noon we had calm mild conditions and the public turned up in their droves. And their Halloween costumes, of course!

Each of the kids had a passport to collect stamps to earn a goody bag so they had to do at least six activities, Meet a Bat was just one of them.

There is a common connection between bats and Halloween mainly as a direct result of the vampire link. In actual fact our bats are tiny insectivores with a cute factor of 11/10. OK, I’m biased but if you ever get the opportunity to meet a bat yourself, take it. I’ll be amazed if you don’t end up agreeing with me.

There is something magical about the moment that a person sees a bat up close for the first time. The eyes widen and sparkle, the mouth drops open with an audible gasp followed by an exclamation of “Oh it’s so tiny!” or “Oh my God! It’s so cute!”. Then come the questions and we know we have a new Batfan.

 So, if you didn’t know, our most common bat is the Common Pipistrelle (latin name Pipistrellus pipistrellus). It feeds on mosquitoes and midges, so it’s really important that we preserve our bugs. Our little Pip comes out around dusk and roosts in all kinds of nooks and crannies, under tiles, behind soffits, almost anywhere. With it’s wings folded it’ll fit into a matchbox and weighs the same as a sheet of A4 paper. It is small but it really is perfectly formed.

At dusk we also ran a bat walk which attracted quite a crowd and happily the Knebworth House bats performed beautifully. We picked them up on the bat detectors, could hear that they were feeding and could even see them silhouetted against the darkening sky as they flitted past us.

Well, we wowed our audience yesterday and all had a great time. I would especially like to say that Hazel Makepeace from the Bat Group did a fantastic job, running the stall from Thursday to Saturday.

If you would like to know more about the Group their website is here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/kimthomas/hmbgsite/mainpage.htm

You can also follow them on twitter: @HMBatGroup 

The Bat Conservation Trust website has details on all species of bats(including photographs of the Common Pipistrelle:

http://www.bats.org.uk/

And for information on supporting bugs to help our bats find food, Buglife’s website is here:

 http://www.buglife.org.uk/

Knebworth House also runs other events throughout the year, or you can just explore the house and grounds. Their website is here:

http://www.knebworthhouse.com/index.html