Hello all,
Last week marked the first full year from when we became incorporated as a community interest company (CIC)! Since then, we’ve been as busy as beavers; constructing our community events, engineering wildlife walks and tours, and building up our funding for future projects. We wanted to share with you some of the community engagement highlights of our past year, and to celebrate the generosity and enthusiasm of our community here in Strathearn!
Our year started out with a bang as we hosted some of our first free community events, including bringing RSPB’s Big School’s Birdwatch to Comrie Primary School! We taught nursery and P4 children how to identify species of birds by looking at their colour and anatomy and demonstrated this with our own handmade blue tit costume! We also showed the basics of how to use binoculars safely and led a birdwatching session in the school’s garden to collect data for the RSPB. Everyone was a delight to work with, and already so enthusiastic about wildlife!
In May we hosted our all-day CIC launch event which included an early morning bird walk led by Andrea and Terry, an owl pellet dissection session, a willow weaving workshop led by Evelyn Schreiner, and a presentation on red kites and beavers by Tom Bowser from Argaty Red Kites. We were so proud to be able to present our new vision of the company to the community!
Summertime held a myriad of different community activities as bats and other wildlife became more active. Outside of our ecological surveys, this activity culminated in our summer solstice event, an accessible walking tour of birds, bats, and beavers around St Fillans! The group was lucky enough to spot a beaver swimming down the River Earn to meet us under the bridge where it hung around to scrutinise us for some time. Our walkers experimented with a selection of bat detectors to hear the echolocations of Daubenton’s, soprano, and common pipistrelle bats flitting over the water. To help educate more people about bats and relevant citizen science projects. We also led a Level 1 Bat Detector Workshop at Innerpeffray Library, on behalf of the Bat Conservation Trust.
During the summer, we took a brief break from bat survey season to speak at the Cateran Ecomuseums pop-up Iron Age Village event, educating those interested in history and sustainability about the array of wildlife and habitats that existed alongside Iron Age peoples in Scotland. These iconic Scottish species, from predators such as brown bear, wolf, white-tailed eagle, and lynx to more overlooked species like great auk and wild boar, all have unique stories of extinction that link closely with modern rewilding and re-introduction movements. We ended the talk by exploring some successful reintroductions within Scotland and the UK, such as red kites and white-tailed eagles. As the days grew warm, we also held a wildflower identification walk for those wanting to brush up on their summertime botany! The group strolled around the shores of Loch Earn identifying local plants, including silverweed, sneezewort, cuckooflower, fox and cubs, yarrow, valerian, and many more.
As summer came to a close, and the autumn chill swept in, we held our final bat walk of the year before the critters went off for hibernation. Except this time, the walk was held underneath the Super Harvest Moon! Bat detectors were passed around, and many pictures were taken of the supermoon rising above the beautiful night-time scenery of St Fillans. We also brought in the spooky season with a Halloween bug hunt for all ages at MacRosty Park, which was great fun!
As winter settled in and the nights grew longer, we hosted two holiday themed events. The first was our sustainable Christmas crafting event, where we partnered with Remake Scotland to provide the community with free second-hand crafting materials. We used the materials to make our own presents, decorations, and holiday themed crafts. We particularly enjoyed seeing everyone’s creativity on display, especially the local children! Then during Twixmas, to burn off some of those mince pies, we led a relaxed nature ramble around St Fillans and saw dippers, goosanders, ravens, buzzards, red kites and more, plus we showed folk the beaver signs along River Earn.
This past year, we also ushered in our first big community project, a series of free local events called Natural Narratives, where we explored various topics around nature, sustainability, and rewilding. So far, we have hosted four events, ranging from screenings of rewilding films such as “Why Not Scotland” and “The Bough Breaks,” to engaging talks about biodiversity and coexisting with beavers. We feel these sessions have brought together our communities across Strathearn, and we have especially loved seeing locals get engaged in informal discussions about wildlife and nature!
Our next Natural Narratives event will run on February 28th, where we will welcome Marian from Highland Boundary who will tell us all about regenerative farming and the making of their botanical spirits. Visit here to book your free place. The final Natural Narratives event will be on March 28th, so stay tuned for booking details and more information! We hope to run the series again in the future. You can read more about each of our Natural Narratives events in our earlier blog posts.
In the past month, we've kicked off the start of 2025 with our nest box building event and resulting nest box sale to raise funds for our future community projects and activities. We enjoyed seeing everyone of all ages get to do some old-fashioned DIY!
Outside of our community events, we’ve been busy this past year conducting a variety of different ecological surveys throughout Scotland! We’ve encountered signs of water vole, beaver, otter, pine marten, red squirrel, bats, breeding birds, reptiles, and amphibians in a number of places, and taken part in surveys for improving biodiversity, pond creation, all access pathway creation, and for river restoration projects! We’ve also recruited volunteers, led bespoke day tours, guided river watch tours, and given advice to encourage wildlife in gardens. Our team has also attended a few nature-related conferences, including Revive Scotland and the Scottish Botanists Conference.
A huge thank you to everyone who has supported us in our first year as a community interest company. We are excited to continue providing communities in Strathearn and possibly beyond, with wildlife and nature related events, resources, and projects. This new year has brought in some great news for the CIC, since our funding application with Perth & Kinross Council’s Health and Well-being Fund was successful! This will support us in starting one of our new projects, Nature Mingle, where we will be bringing the beauty of the natural world indoors for those who face barriers to accessing the outdoors. We can’t wait to see its impact!
We are currently away on our Islay tour and will return with many pictures of its fabulous wildlife. So far, we’ve seen white-tailed eagles, golden eagles, waders, ducks, choughs, and so much more!
Here’s to another fabulous year!
~ The Aquila Team