Latest / Sukany4: The Walk and Talk Podcast / S2E2 - Ros Jones PhD - Freeman's Wood - Wildlife Wellbeing Walks (CIC)

Transcript

S2E2 - Ros Jones PhD - Freeman's Wood - Wildlife Wellbeing Walks (CIC) · Sukany4: The Walk and Talk Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a welcome back to Sakania the Podcast.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: In this series, we are exploring Lancashire, and today I am joined by the wonderful Ross Jones, the founder of Wildlife Wellbeing Walks, a community interest company based in Lancaster.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: We began the walk along Lancaster's Quay heading towards Freeman Wood, which is a reclaimed town green rich in bird song and biodiversity.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Ross is a trained botanist and ecologist with a calm, friendly approach that makes learning about nature feel really effortless.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: As we walked along, we shared stories about the meaning behind bird songs, how to identify bird songs, how to identify shapes in the different plants, and I learned so much along the way.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Rosa's enthusiasm and natural ability to explain and share and teach is infectious.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about Rosa's journey from academia to running small social walks that support well-being and curiosity.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: We also talked about Rosa's very exciting plans for the first ever Wild Roots Nature Festival, which is happening between the 13th and 15th of June 2025.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you're lacing up your boots or grabbing a cup of tea and curling up on the sofa, join us for this walk as we remember that we too are part of nature.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy! Hi Sakania, how are you?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really good, how are you?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm fine, thank you.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Take three of our recording.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I know we'll nail it this time.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm getting we didn't get the grunty dog though.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I'm really sad.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: The dog that had pig-like tendencies.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: So um so we are in Lancaster.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: We are indeed, yeah.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just saying um that Cumbria was very cold and misty and mizzly and wet and dreary, and as I drove down to see you, the sun came out.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, absolutely perfect, isn't it?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is this is uh some something someone is shining on us today with a bit of sun coming, and it's breezy, but it's it's definitely nice weather for a spring walk, isn't it?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, and you can just yeah, it's a little bit breezy, but actually the warmth of the sun is just lovely, just what I needed.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely vitamin D.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Bit of R and R.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um where are you taking me today?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we're we're starting on the quay um in Lancaster, um, along the River Loon, yeah, and um, and so actually the name for Lancaster comes from um the River Loon and the Castle, so it's like a corruption of um Castle on the Loon, essentially, Lancaster.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that's cool, isn't it?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's really cool.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so we're gonna go along the quay and then we're gonna go into Freeman's Wood, um, which is um, as the name suggests, it's an old uh Freeman's Wood.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was it was saved from development a few years ago by a local group.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's now a town green, so it's a lovely little space.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, cool.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we should hear lots of nice birds song, and we'll see early signs of spring as we go along the way.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh amazing! I can't wait.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait for my education.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, did you um always live in Lancaster?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Is this where you grew up?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, so I'm I'm I'm a I'm a right southerner.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh you are I'm from yeah, I'm from Kent.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, yeah, so long way, long way north.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, but yeah, um always had a connection with nature down there, and then I sort of gradually moved west for degrees, and then uh I got I got as far as the coast in Wales, and I other than getting in the Irish Sea, I could only really go north from there, so uh that's sort of yeah, I ended up in Lancaster, which is I love it here.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Did you say degrees?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I did an undergraduate botany degree in Reading, okay, and then I went on to Aberisworth to go and do a PhD, uh-huh.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh which was kind of plant biochemistry and um looking at pollution from nitrogen.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because in a low nutrient habitat you get invasive grasses and things coming in.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's that's quite interesting from that perspective.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: But while I was in Aberistwith, I did a lot of lifelong learning courses there.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so it's it's kind of the sort of courses that you would do perhaps if you've already done a degree or um later in life and you just want to learn a bit more about a subject.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: And they had a lot that were related to field biology, so things like bird song identification, plant identification, and that sort of thing.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I really kind of honed my skills during that time, which was great.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was a really nice um break from the kind of the really hard mental work of of studying, yeah.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so having that kind of outdoor time to really engage and then the the natural world in in Aberaswith in that part of Mid Wales, it's just stunning.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's just so many beautiful areas to go and explore and really kind of interesting um bird life and flora and fauna.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: So um it was it was a really it was a really great place to be and to kind of learn a lot of that sort of thing, yeah.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so and then when I was kind of looking for somewhere to put some roots down, yeah, having come to Lancaster a couple of times uh to do some bits of research up here during my PhD.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a big lorry.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um having come up here a couple of times, I knew a couple of people, so yeah, a job came up, and I've been here for uh uh 14 and a half years now.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, so that's awesome.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's um you like it.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: I love it, I love it.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what do you love about it?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um it it's it's big enough that everybody doesn't know every bit of your business, but it's small enough that you have really great connections with lots of people, and there's so many interesting links in Lancaster, yeah, um really interesting networks of people, and it takes a bit of time to get in and find those.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: But once you do, yeah, the world's your oyster, really.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's and I guess because we've got a really um research-intensive university, and I spent a lot of my years up here working at the university, um it's just people are really engaged, really innovative.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: So there's there's lots of really interesting things happening in this area, and it and and you know, it's a beautiful part of the world, not far from the lakes, but you know, within 10 minutes of the city centre, yeah, we're we're almost out in the middle of nowhere, almost not quite.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's still a few cars going past, so um yeah, and I've just met so many lovely people up here and um nice little community, yeah, absolutely, and it's much cheaper than living in the southeast as well, much cheaper.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's a win-win all round.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, yeah, yeah.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, what does a botanical degree look like?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um gosh, it's a it's a number of years ago now.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, so it's and also follow-up question.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: What got you into it?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, I'll do the what got me into it first, actually.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: So um I've always been interested in wildlife, it it's always been a comfortable place for me.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, um from a childhood thing.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: My mum apparently used to put me out in the prime underneath the trees, so you know you couldn't get started much earlier than that, really.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, and then as I kind of went through my teens and my early twenties, I realised that there was something missing, and I never went to university sort of straight from school.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: I waited six years before I went.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and at that point my parents have really got into kind of bird watching, and right um, and I thought, well, I'll do a degree that kind of gives me a bit more flexibility.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I was doing botany and zoology, but I must admit I kind of didn't really like the zoology, it was very invertebrate-based, and it wasn't really an area of so much of interest for me, so I dropped that much to my mum.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: My mum's oh, she was very upset that she wasn't getting all gonna get onology.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be a certain age to get that joke.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was from the BT adds back in the day, right?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, she used to talk about analogy.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay, yeah, yeah.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: So very good.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh, but but I really love the botany, and and what I found really interesting was so we we studied all sorts of things, um like evolution, ecology, um, but there was a lot of things around plant biochemistry that was really interesting, so all the kind of chemical compounds had a very colourful, quite old school um lecturer who uh had a a title, a subtitle of Plant Biochemistry Um or How to Poison Your Mother-in-Law, which was very much in jest, but you know, probably wouldn't be appropriate now, yeah.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and not sure it was appropriate back then either to go.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um and um and so I found that really fascinating, but then also the kinds of adaptations of plants to kind of defence because obviously they can't just get up and move, you know, like when an animal has a predator, yeah, it it can generally, unless it's disabled in some way, it can run away.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um whereas a plant can't move away, so when something comes along to eat it, how does it manage with that?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got things like the brambles that we're walking past here that have got these really fearsome spikes on them, yeah.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um that puts a lot of things off and trying to graze on them.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then you have other plants that kind of develop these really noxious chemicals, yeah.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um but then certain insects then kind of respond to that and they then they're able to cope with that.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh and then they sort of some of them so there's like a really good example of some uh the monarch butterfly in America in the Americas, yeah, um, that kind of um takes on board the toxins and it makes it poisonous as an adult, then as the adult butterfly makes it poisonous, and and it makes the butterfly poisonous, and so you get like young blue jays that don't know this and they kind of try and eat it and um throw throw it back up again essentially, and so it so it really puts them off, so they'll see that, and because birds are very um they see in full colour like we do, uh in fact, an even wider range of colour than we do.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow um so uh it it not only do they not eat the monarch butterflies, but then there are other butterflies that are coloured the same that aren't toxic, and they leave those as alone as well.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it's like a mimicry.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: So so all of these kind of interactions between plants and animals, I just found that really fascinating, and yeah, and so it just opened up this whole new world to me.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and as I was saying, then once I started uh learning about different bird songs, and I knew a few from childhood because my parents were quite you know always quite keen on it.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we can hear one now.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's a sparrow chirp in a way, yeah.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Tony, I love that you can do this.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is like your superpower.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I just love walking with you.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh thanks, I can yeah, and your knowledge of plants and everything is amazing.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks, sparrow.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so sparrows, things like sparrows and blackbirds and song thrushes and chaffinches, those were kind of more common birds that I knew as a kid.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then starting to learn the ones that kind of come and visit in the summer to breed here.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh, when I was so that was some of the courses that I was doing when I was doing my PhD.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it just opened up a whole new world, and and then really learning plants.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, instead of just seeing like a background of green now, I see individual shapes and colours and species, right?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I really tap into the the diversity that's around.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um so, like as we're walking through here, there's the lovely silvery bark of the silver birch trees, uh, which are not in leaf yet, but you can really see the buds starting to swell.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then we've got uh some elder here, so this is what is starting to come out into leaf a bit more.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's got things.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh no, this is though this is the this is the brambles, the the long ones with the really vicious spikes.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, it's it's pretty, it's pretty um tenacious.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're in a war.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, understandable in a garden, you know.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh but no, behind that is the elder, so it's got this amazingly deep fissured bark.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh but that's coming into leaf now, and that's that has these lovely frothy white flowers on it, and then the berries in the autumn, the blackberries, the older berries in the autumn.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: So um so that yeah, so I just I just see this kind of real diverse world, but then once you get switched on to hearing bird song, yeah, it never switches back off again, and so this just this this world really world it completely opens up, and um and so any anytime I'm out on a walk, you know, I can be really in my head about all sorts of things, yeah.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then suddenly I'll hear a bird song and I go, Oh, that's a so-and-so, and it just stops me short and brings me back and makes me mindful, and then I I kind of everything else seems to just drop away again.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's what I really love about being connected with nature, you know, connecting with the seasons.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: We we've lost so much of this, and that that I find that really sad and what?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: We've lost so much of that connection with nature, yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it's it's not surprising when we've gone from 80% of the population in the UK living in rural settings to 80% living in urban settings.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow, really?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: What time spike?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um a hundred years.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's all.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: So no, no, so from the 1920s to the 2020s, yeah, that's where we're that's where we're at.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so you know, it's it's it's not the fault of people living there, they they don't know.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, but really, you know, if we're gonna if we're gonna try and do anything for climate and nature crises, you know, the UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's uh it's really sad.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh habitat loss, right?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Insification of agriculture, pollution.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um what does intensification of agriculture mean?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: So um where where it would have been done and you would have had lower yields in the past, so you know, this is a lot of this results from the Second World War.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it's not the fault of farmers, um, it's just how policy has gone.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so you know, hedgerows being grubbed out, old orchards being removed, lots of deforestation.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Deforestation isn't necessarily down to um agriculture but um or farming, yeah.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um but oh that's a chifchaff that's singing there.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh it sings its name.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's just oh chifraf, chifchaff, exactly.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to have these ways for remembering them because otherwise, you know, there's so many different bird species, it's like, oh, how do you remember?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that one's a summer visitor.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's come all the way from sub-Saharan Africa.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, um, okay, yeah, amazing.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Or well, has it though?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there are some, I don't think UK ones, but there are some now that overwinter.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so we we get um quite a lot of German chiff chassel kind of overwinter in the south of England, black caps as well.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, that's another African species that actually are they sub-Saharan?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, now now I'm now I'm questioning myself.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: They're certainly African species, things like swallows and swifts, they're definitely sub-Saharan.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: They come some of those come all the way from South Africa.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, um so um, but yeah, so as I say, we've got huge nature depletion in in in the UK, uh-huh, and and I think some of that is probably connected to the fact that we we have lost that connection with nature.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, really, I guess what what I'm all about is trying to help people to find that reconnection, and um and certainly, you know, I I I had a period of this, um, and that is this is sort of where wildlife well-being walks came from.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, was that after the lockdowns, and of course many of us were getting out and doing more walks, and and I I'm certainly I was certainly one of those, although I was one of only a couple in my department that was um this was when I was still working at the university that wasn't on furlough, but I would get up at six o'clock in the morning and go for a five-mile walk before I started my working day, just to kind of give me that you know that bit of sanity really.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and absolutely, and then you'd meet people while you're out walking, and um, and it's such a lovely area to to be out in.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but at the end of the lockdowns, so late 2021, I developed really bad RSI, so I had tennis elbow in both of my arms, and it was agony.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I could get out and go for a walk, and it took my mind off of it.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, and it actually because I was moving, it sort of you know, it helped to relieve some of the some of the pain.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um body composition.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, yeah.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Positioning position, yeah, yeah.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because I wasn't able to go down there for a moment.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course we can, yeah.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: So this is this is down right onto the to the river's edge.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we're at fairly fairly high tide, but we're not in any danger of being inundated.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, not today, anyway.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: It does come right up and over when it's on a really high tide, and especially if it's been like raining as well.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: So beautiful, um but yeah, it's stunning.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, it's not fully high tide because it's just a little bit of the shoreline.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Lovely thing about being able to hear the water water, absolutely, just sort of laughing.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Just the lapping, yeah.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I didn't mean to break a flood.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's absolutely fine, no worries.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, so I'd I'd had this real pain um and getting out and going walking was just a really good way to take my mind off of that.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I got to the end of that winter, so early in um 2022.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I felt better than I had for many years in the winter.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now part of that's probably because I wasn't working, yeah.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there was no stress.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd had a proper, you know, I'd been able to properly rest in the winter, which is, you know, that's kind of what we the winter should be about us slowing down and yeah, kind of going inwards and going into a bit of a hibernation mode um and then doing more in the spring and summer months, but you know, the way that modern life is with that's not what we do.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but definitely having that nature connection through that time was really important, and and I just thought, oh, I'd like to introduce other people to this.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And a friend said, Oh, you know, people are pay good money to you know be led on a walk by you, Ros, because you've got so much knowledge, and and and I just really want to share that with people and and kind of reignite that that sense of wonder and awe and you know that child, yeah, that childlike curiosity, you know.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's amazing how kids will come up to you and go, Look, look, I've just found a snail or I've just found a ladybird.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and they're so excited about that.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's like, why did it?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I haven't more.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: I've not lost it, but a lot of people do, or or maybe didn't ever have it, and I think we're really missing out on something.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe some childhoods now are quite sterile, aren't they?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, got another lovely chifchaff serenading us there.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's great, you're gonna have gone away from this learning a new bird song.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: My first one.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, you can find that your your passion is infectious.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, thank you.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just really nice to just share space with you where you are so knowledgeable, you get the the you know, it's accessible information, it's not like scientific words and oh no, oh gosh, no.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, I did all of that uh during my PhD, but that was another lifetime ago, you know.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's Some of that's still there, but but um absolutely I think if you if you make these things too highbrow, I mean I don't I also don't want to do it to kind of dumb down or or to treat people as being stupid because that because no one is, but um uh but but in it's very accessible, isn't it?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely like human somehow.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: For sure, yeah.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and and that's the thing, like we are intimate, we're part of nature, yeah, and we forget that.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: We do um and but we are intimately connected with it, and you know, there are ways in which we've used natural resources and and oftentimes unfortunately overuse natural resources, but there are some really interesting kind of social history connections that we have with the natural world, and and I think it's kind of bringing those back to people and going, Oh, I didn't, you know, I didn't know that teasel, for example, which is a lovely um wildflower you get on waste ground a lot, and goldfinches um come in and eat the seeds.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but um it's kind of quite spiky.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it's in it's in like the same family as things like daisies and thistles.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's not quite as spiky as thistles, um, but it has it has got these little hooks all over the over the um the head where the flowers are, um and that was used to um kind of tease out the wool, and that's so that's that's where the name comes from, tease tease wool, teasel.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's great to get the sort of history.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I you know I find that really I find that sort of side of things really fascinating and um teasel.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and you know, but it's not just our connection with that, it's then how it its place in in the habitat and in the environment, and and to understand that each each species has come on a journey.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh I'm gonna stop myself there because so we've got we've got some egg casings here.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: So um this will be from a species of it'll either be a shark or a ray.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um no, it's not, it's not, it's dog welk egg casings, that's it.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Dog whelks.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, dog welks.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: So they're like um they're like a water gastropod snaily type thing.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh yeah, dog welks, sorry, the what the other ones is the is like where you get like the mermaid's purse.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever seen those before?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that's where you get sharks and raisin, and they're kind of like it looks like a piece of seaweed, but it's like a rectangular or square shape.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's got kind of these these tendrils that come off of it and that they attach it to um bits of vegetation, but it does so it it kind of you know like um kelps and things in in the water.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it it resembles the the surrounding and um camouflages them while they're while they're developing.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, no, so that's dog welcing, which is that's really cool.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the kind of thing that you see because because the loon is um is a tidal extra well, it's a tidal river, um so um it's not that far out to Morecambe Bay, but as the tide comes in, because the the casing of the dog welk, so it looked a bit like polystyrene, didn't it really?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh that will have kind of come up and it'll have blown in on the wind because it's so lightweight, so um it it can come quite a way in.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I can see that you're constantly looking around, you know.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just walking like almost blind.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, and I think stuff.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, actually and this is where I think we lose out a little bit because and this is where you know there's a there's a lot of evidence now that time spent in nature is really good for us.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's even better for us when we connect with it.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've come the wrong way here, haven't I?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh how did you get up there?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's more how did I get down with such little legs?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um so uh welcome back.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's better, thank you.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: The path less trodden.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so um, you know, if we can connect with it, um, and you don't need to know what all the species are.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's but I think if you can recognise that there are different species in front of you, um, and kind of just absorb that a little bit more, um it just makes the experience that much, you know, it's it's part of the five ways to well-being, isn't it?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's like connect, it's it's learn, um, it's um oh gosh, uh be active, um uh take notice, yeah, and then give back.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we can come to the give back later, but yeah, I think while we're just here, uh I've just noticed so we've got blackthorn in flower here, so it's these lovely little starry white flowers um on quite dark branches, so um and there's two species that are quite similar.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there's blackthorn and then there's hawthorn, and okay, um, and so blackthorn you get the flowers come first, and you can just see the first leaves are starting to kind of come through now, but but it's very much in flower, and then you get hawthorn, and the and the leaves on the hawthorn and the blackthorn look very different, but the flowers look very similar, and so people often get muddled between the two.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um now is that hawthorn over there or is that something else?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's something else.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: So hawthorn, but I mean the colour of the leaves that we're seeing there is very similar to the colour of the leaves on hawthorn, but um but the shape of them is is quite different.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: But hawthorn comes into leaf first and then it flowers.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you'll see the grip the the green leaves with the white flowers on top.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of how you so that so it it's it's all of those sorts of little things.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this is this is some this looks more like hawthorn.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Just check them, right?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, this is hawthorn.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the leaves are quite the edges of the leaves are quite serrated.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um whereas on the on the blackthorn they're they're entire.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you kind of get to learn these things, but they as the name suggests, they both have quite sharp thorns on, and again that goes back to the thing of protecting themselves from um things coming along and eating them.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um how long did it take for you to get comfortable with and confident that you you could remember these things?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, so I mean there's there's all sorts of ways that you can kind of help yourself.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, when I did when I did it and was studying, um, it was very much learning about for plants, which I think is is that much harder.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's it was about learning the plant families and then kind of from that going through plant keys and getting down to individual species, and and so I've got retention of all those species, but there are some that I still don't really know.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I have to go back and look those up, and um but for but for things like but but there are lots of apps out there.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I would I would always kind of urge a bit of caution with those because they're not 100% accurate, some are some are better than others, uh-huh.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so people can use those if they're trying to kind of identify something and they want to at least get to close to the to the right species, you know, at least get the kind of the family right, yeah.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um they can use those, but there's also some really good ones for bird song, for example.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: So there's some really good free ones.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: So there's the Merlin Bird ID app.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody was mentioning another one to me the other day, which has gone in and gone back out of my head again, I'm afraid.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um but we can always provide a resource list if people are interested, yeah.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you know, there are ways to get to know them, and what I like about these things is you know, even I still need to use them every now and then, and there's always questions that come up that I don't know the answer to, and I love that because you know I love the mystery of the fact that we can't possibly know everything, we don't know everything, and I certainly don't, you know, I know a lot, but I don't know everything, and I love it when a question comes up that I don't know the answer to because I go away and look it up and I find I I'm still learning, yeah, and I just love that aspect of it that you know there's always something new to learn, and I love getting people's differing perspectives on it, yeah.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that they see something that um that I've not, and you you just get a different um a different way into something, and it's like I'd never have thought about that myself, and somebody's just asked me something really interesting, it's like, oh that's really cool, yeah.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Where where can that lead to?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think it's always that thing of it's always that thing of discovery, absolutely, yeah.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's great, great to get a different perspective.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um how did you go about setting up your business?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is it while walking?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh wildlife while being walks, life while being walks.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like I like a good bit of alliteration.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: I studied English literature for A level, so yeah, and biology and business studies, so it's kind of it's come full circle, really.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it was always your thing.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was, it was a really weird combination at the time, but it it it's it's kind of yeah, it's come back.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it does absolutely.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: There was a reason for it.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, what was the question again?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: I was completely oh yeah, so how did I start?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, as I say, at the end of like the this period of RSI, and somebody had said to me, and so actually, this is the route that we took on the very first walk, and it was in it was in February 2023, so three years just over three years ago, yeah, and it was blowing a hoolie and it was chucking it down with rain, uh-huh, and it was a few friends, so we kind of we cut it a little bit short, yeah, and went back to mine for a hot drink.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but from there I just started chatting to people about it, and a friend recommended the growing club in Lancaster.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that's a an organisation that I now work for in my day job.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, cool! Um, yeah, so um we do um employability and entrepreneurship training for women, uh-huh, and they have a business startup course, uh which back then was called Roots and Shoots, which resonated hugely with me.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, and so I did that for a year, uh huh.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then I had a mentor, which is part of the the course you get a mentor for free for a year after that, so once a month.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh amazing.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that's really helped me to kind of focus in, um kind of get my visioning, which I think was relatively clear from the start, but it's it's amazing how just focusing in on that, you know, who my ideal customers are and yeah, um and where I wanted to go.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Say again, where did you land with your ideal customer?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm probably my ideal customer, but with less knowledge.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, um professional working women who maybe they have children, maybe they don't, okay, or maybe slightly older and and kind of getting on towards or or in retirement, yeah.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but who either want to kind of get back some of that time in nature, learn a bit more, or or really to kind of give themselves a bit of time and space to um relax and unwind.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, there's this we're so switched on all the time, and I you know, I do it myself, sit there doom scrolling, yeah, you know, have the television on, and I'm looking at my phone, and it's like, what am I doing?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: So much situation, but nothing's going in.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um as I sort of was saying before, that um you know we know that time in green space is is really good for us, it's really soothing for our minds, and it's because there's a level of concentration, um, especially if you are doing that kind of connecting with, engaging with, learning about, yeah, but it's actually really restful for our brains, right?
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and what and what they find is that you know, time spent connecting in nature um it improves memory, concentration, um, creativity, productivity, um, so it's it's it's great for us.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: So um, and it it really reduces our stress levels, so it you know helps to kind of reduce cortisol and um can help us kind of go more into the it always sounds the wrong way around.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: So the the sympathetic nervous system is where we were high cortisol and and and it it's kind of our ancient brain that um uh is the fight or flight mechanism, yeah.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: So that if you know we were being chased on the savannah by a lion, um you know you really need those things to kind of get you moving and get you out there.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, unfortunately now what we have is you know we get a grumpy email from someone or um or something kind of triggers us, and that cortisol kind of builds up, you know, the the the stresses that we have from everyday life from being constantly switched on, um and it and it and we end up with kind of a continually high level of cortisol, which is really bad for us.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it kind of can contribute to weight gain and you know it can it can really impact negatively, so particularly for women, the weight gain, especially menopausal women, um and it and it you know it can have other really damaging physiological and psychological, you know, and mental effects on us.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um so anything where we can kind of come away from that and just have a break from that, and and so and so that's why you know I really wanted to kind of target those those women of um of my kind of age that are kind of starting to come into perimenopause and menopause and dealing with that on top of all the other things that they're dealing with in their lives, yeah.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um was kind of the aim really was to kind of come and yeah, just just have a bit of a breather, really.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that sounds ace.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so just back to the walk, yeah.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is beautiful, yeah.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's absolutely lovely, and in fact, we've walked past my favourite tree.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, have we?
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're gonna have to go back.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to go back because I was deep I was deep in conversation, but as we walk back, so on the right here we've got some lesser salandines.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Lesser salandines is that the yellow that's the yellow flowers, the yellow things, the yellow things, they're flowers, yeah.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: They've got these lovely heart-shaped leaves.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, and if you look at the petals closely, they're kind of slightly shiny.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so they're in the buttercup family.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so if you if you think of buttercups, you know, when you used to pick them and put them under your chin to see whether you like butter or not.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um well you could do the same thing with a salandine, um, they just don't grow near cows.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, because these are more of a woodland species.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so oh that was a jacked all going over.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, this is so impressive.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like a show-off though.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Not at all, not at all.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so just walk past these flowers going, oh yellow things.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: But you're such a thing.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're such a joy though, because this is like one of our earliest flowering natives.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we we you know, we we obviously we think of springtime as being things like crocuses and daffodils, and whilst there are native daffodil species, the vast majority that we see are ones that are planted, you know, that have come in from elsewhere, tulips as well, they're not native.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so in terms of like early native flowers, um, it's things like lesser salandine, dandelions, yeah, daisies, and often things that people think of as weeds, and and and it's like, well, you know, it's that old adage of weeds are just plants that are growing in the wrong place, and it's yeah, you know, it's us that says that they're growing in the wrong place, but you know, that's decided that.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, exactly.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they're really important because you know, when you get the bumblebee queens emerging at this time of the year, they need food because they've been hibernating all winter, so they need the pollen and the nectar.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so these are really important little ones.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got a little patch of these grown in my front garden that have self-seeded, and I was delighted when I first saw them.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Yay, they'll come to me.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um this is the tree.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: So this is let me get a picture of you with the tree.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'll tell you in a second.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very beautiful, it's a black poplar.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so this is quite a rare species now in the UK.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so pot uh black poplar is one where you have a separate male and female tree.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so a lot of flowers have both the male and the female organs in the flower.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: So the lesser salandines that we were looking at, they've they've both got like the um the stigma that which is is where the the pollen gets um lands basically.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then there's a there's a the ovaries are lower down, so the kind of the pollen goes grows this tube and then it fertilizes it, and so that's all in one, but but to but there's various mechanisms so it doesn't pollinate itself.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um so cross-fertilisation is much more um successful for uh keeping genetic diversity so that you don't get um prone to diseases and um mutations and things.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: So um, but but you get some plants where you get um so you might you might get them like as I say with the lesser celindine, which is like a hermaphrodite flower where male and female in the same place, you might get them where you get separate male and female um on the same plant, and so that's called monoecious, so that comes from the Greek meaning one house.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um so for example, a lot of trees that have catkins, they'll have like male and male catkins and female catkins or a variation thereof, um, and then you get dioecious, two houses from the Greek, um, and that's where you get a separate male and a female plant.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: So the black poplar is is is that way, okay.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't have them close enough together so that they can they can pollinate, then you then you lose out.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and that the there there's a and I can't remember which way around it is, I think there's it's mostly male black poplars with very few female.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um and they're not close enough to each other to so this is very special.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's very, very special, and it's I mean the bark is just incredible.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I do quite often come and give it a hug.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, I do.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well that uh there's there's something in that.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um so um either going barefoot on grass or or kind of laying your hands on something like a tree, um it is physically grounding for us.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: So we talk about grounding, yeah.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: People talk about grounding quite a lot, but um electrically grounding, um, so all of our cells are made up of atoms, and every atom has a different charge on it depending on you know um what it's made up of, but um those can kind of go a little bit out of um whack, I think.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so if you put your your bare feet onto grass, yeah, um you can see the charge just drops, so it literally grounds us.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't I I don't I don't fully know the science to it, I'm gonna be completely honest, but you know, you can get static build-up and everything, and and doing that it just it literally kind of it neutralizes.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um so and and I've you know I've done it, and you can just feel something change in you, yeah.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: Feel tension and stuff dropping away.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and even if it was only a psychological thing, it doesn't matter, does it?
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you if you feel that effect from something that's really positive.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we have stock indeed.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a pair of mallards, yeah.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um beautiful, yeah.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh just in the just in the little ditch along the side of the wood.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, um, yeah, it's it's a complex world out there, and I think that's that's what I love is just there's so much complexity, and it's it's endlessly fascinating.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um and that you know there's always something, as I was saying before, there's always something new to learn.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um so so where do you see um wilderness, wildlife, well-being walks?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: Wildlife, well-being walks.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you see it developing?
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: What are your thoughts?
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so a couple of years ago, after I've been doing this for a few months, I said to somebody, do you know Lancaster does festivals really well, but we haven't got a any kind of nature or green festival.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: And she went, Great idea, Ross, go for it.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, exactly.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it took me a while to build my confidence up, but um, over the last year and a bit, uh, have been developing Wild Roots Nature Festival.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Wild Roots Nature Festival.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that is coming this June, uh 13th to the 15th of June.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm so excited because I think it's a way to tap into a larger group of people.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I think I think the walks is wonderful, but yeah, it it's it's it's hard to promote that to people if they don't know you.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and so it's quite slow going, you know, people are struggling for money, um, and I think there's perhaps a bit of an attitude of well, why should I pay to go out on a walk with someone when I can go and do It for free, yeah.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's fine, I I completely get that, but I think with the festival the idea is that we're providing some walks, um, we're gonna be providing all sorts of other activities um for people to get involved in creatively um through exercise, um, a whole range of um at different locations.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: So Freeman's Wood is going to be one of the locations.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and if by providing that for free, it just makes it a bit more accessible for those that are struggling, yeah.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and where people can, you know, we'll ask for donations, absolutely.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and it might just be that people don't really aren't really sure about that direct connection that you get from going out on a walk and and learning about the species, yeah.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um but actually just being out in nature and maybe so we're gonna have some tai chi and um we're gonna we're gonna do um some creative writing up at Claver Hill.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: So those different ways of tapping into it through through those creative um or exercise um just gives a different opportunity for people to be outside and and appreciating what's around them.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah um so that's kind of yeah I'm really excited.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a really great working group of people that have kind of come together with me and yeah, you know, volunteer in their time to to support this and um been trying to do some work with some local organisations, so I've done some work with the fabulous Escape to Make in Lancaster, so they provide creative outlets for young people, um, hoping to go and do some work in schools.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: So um I kind of you know this this wasn't what I'd envisaged, you know.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: When I said my ideal customer was me, yeah.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I kind of I don't have children myself, so I there was a there was some nervousness about working with young people, but I'm finding that incredibly rewarding, and I I think you know perhaps going forwards there'll be more of that sort of thing, yeah, more of that kind of outreach in in the local communities and and and using that work to help contribute to future years of the festival, I think, and um and and grow it bigger and wider.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like the start of a legacy, to be honest.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's just so well needed and to do it in such a community-spirited manner, yeah, and hopefully infect other people with your passion.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it sounds wonderful.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean that that's what I hope is is is for it to kind of you know it's that thing of I can reach one person maybe on a walk who then goes and shares what they've learnt with somebody else, yeah, and then they share it with somebody else, and and it it's that kind of where it it you know you you don't see all of the ways in which it's it's spread and and and how people have learnt about something, but um my hope is that yeah, more and more people um learn to to appreciate, love, respect nature.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very important um for myself and and others um on the working group that there's an element of responsibility about going out into nature.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that there's lots of horror tales from lockdown of people leaving litter and yeah you know accidentally starting fires and and being a bit you know through through a lack of knowledge I was gonna say not yeah, um, you know, kind of dis disrupting um farmers and you know parking in front of farm gates and stuff.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, we'll include elements about the countryside code and and and give people some ideas about how they can do something for nature, yeah.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um oh we've got goldfinch singing now.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, amazing, it's just lovely.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, and and and actually, you know, people think oh it's gonna be really expensive to kind of live a life that's more environmentally friendly and to cut my carbon footprint, but actually there are really simple things that people can do that like actually it feels like you're being lazy.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: So like if you if you leave a a bit of an untidy patch if you've got a garden, if you're lucky enough to have a garden, if you leave a bit of an untidy patch in your garden, yeah, you let a few weeds grow, um, you know, you you kind of have a bit of a a pile of um sort of decaying.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've if you've cut some if you cut some shrubs back, you know, you can leave the twigs and stuff, and that forms a a little uh bug hotel for free.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's some really good things that you can do like that.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's like this is good.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to go for perfection.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, and and full perfection is exhausting.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not it's not it's not real.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's no such thing.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've just got plum pots and they are not full perfection at all.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, and and you know, you can you you can plant some lovely bee-friendly or insect-friendly plants in there that you'll love as well.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it you know, um and maybe they don't look as neat and tidy as some of the things that we've been expected to believe, but yeah, but then you get the benefit of of you know supporting these these insects, and so that that thing I said earlier of the five five ways to well being the giving back.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you can give back by doing nothing, right?
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just like that's like my my mum, my dear mum, who's no longer with us, but she had a t-shirt that said, I'm not a lazy gardener, I'm a conservationist, and I just love that because it was like you know, it shows that you can do something and it doesn't have to cost the earth, and um you know unless there's more in this case, yeah, absolutely.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: You could you could have a don't strip everything back, no, absolutely brambles and they're green you shed, yeah.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: That I mean you know that you know with within reason, right?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um because if you can't get in your shakers, it's covered in brambles, then how you know that yeah, I I get that completely.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I the brambles come out of my front garden because they are really vicious as well, the ones I've got.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um so um, but there are other things, you know, and it's like we could do a meat free Monday, yeah.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um if you you know that would help cut your your carbon footprint, it's cheaper, it's cheaper eating plant based.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's not it's not to kind of dictate to people, it's just it's just ideas and suggestions.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um so just to just to recap the five, what were they?
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: So the five are um connection, uh huh.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um oh god, no, you tested me.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um keep give back, keep learning, keep learning, connection, keep learning, give back, give back, um uh connection.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: Did I say connection already?
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right, hang on, I've got I've got to go back to the start of these.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: So connection, keep active, keep learning, uh, give back and take notice.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: Take notice, take notice.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think the take notice bit is definitely achievable.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um maybe there needs to be a sixth one of get curious.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I guess the curiosity kind of comes with the taking notice and the keep learning, so it's maybe that connects those two, yeah, you know, because everything's connected.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, these aren't my five ways to well being.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: These are just yeah, absolutely.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, why not?
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think I you know, I was having a chat with somebody recently and he was saying, you know, there's kind of there's there's another school that says there's ten, and don't ask me what the other ones are.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: So um but yeah, curiosity is is absolutely, and that's you know, kids have so much curiosity, they're so in the moment, and it's and you know, again, it's we do, we do, yeah, it's really sad.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: It is why do we lose that?
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's not for now, but no, no, I think we get bogged down in you know the realities of adulting, and and let's kind of you know, and that's what I want is people to regain that sense of wonder, and I think you know, parents that do have yeah, that sense of wonder and and just sheer joy at the at the you know, oh my god, this is amazing.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um so um so we're coming out now into the middle of Freemanswood, so this is this is the area where we will be um holding um the festival, and it's great because they've having saved this from development.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, god how how awful would this have been to have had this all developed.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so they've they've um they've purchased the land now so it's held in trust.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, um, and they've raised funding to protect it.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it's protected, it's a town green as well.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that gives you bird.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, sorry.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's absolutely fun.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a robin.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: Can you see it just up there?
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh singing, singing saying hi to us.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what he's really doing is going, come on, ladies, look at me.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really fit, I'm really I'm really beautiful.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: Listen to all the variation in my song and saying to all the men, this is my patch, stay away.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, because that bit sounded quite angry, didn't it?
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that didn't.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: So oh they've got a butterfly, amazing.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow! Oh, so that that is a comma butterfly.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: So could you see that it had quite scalloped edges on the on the wings?
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the name comes from the fact that it looks like it's got like a comma shape on uh one of the markings, looks like a comma.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that will have overwintered, yeah.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, uh you say that would have overwintered.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: That means so as in it was a whole new language.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that will have been an adult like late summer, early autumn, okay, and it would have gone into hibernation over the winter, so it would have found somewhere, and so you can imagine that that's quite precarious.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and a lot of them oh that was a crunchy gotta stick.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and um a lot of them won't survive the winter, so they might be found by something and munched on, or yeah, uh they might you know they might get somewhere that gets damp and they go mouldy or something.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um but they do have you know ways of preventing themselves from freezing and um you know the the chemistry.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well it's just in their it's just in their chemistry and in their you know, it's all instinct.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: I guess we know when we're hot and cold and wet and dry.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's not really a sentient thing, it's just it's just an inbuilt thing that it does physically.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: So um that's a really that's a really interesting again perspective on it because I'm like, well I just know this.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well you know, it's like but when somebody says, Well, how do they know?
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like well, it's not a conscious thing, it's it's they just know with us.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, it's in their genes.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's things that we know, but we read books and we teach ourselves.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_01: But there is so we've got a we've got a Queen Bee here.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that's a red-tailed bumblebee.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: Can you can you see it's mostly black, but it's got a lovely it's got a lovely rusty, it's got a rusty bumblebee.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's very beautiful, it's lovely.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: I just love seeing the blue.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: They just kind of dance around, don't they?
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're really nice to watch.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: As long as they don't come near me, I'm all good.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it's very unlikely that you'll get stunned by a bumblebee.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um or or a honey bee.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that really you'd have to be like close to squishing them for them to want so wasps late in summer, uh but you know.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, but they are really, really important in our ecosystems.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, they they perform a lot of services, they pollinate a lot of things, yeah.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they will eat a lot of um pests, other things that we consider pests.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I've got a lady walking a dog there.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um so they're you know, they're really important, and and other things, do other things, there must be other things that eat wasps.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you know, they all have their place, and it's it's kind of we put our our moralising or our kind of our code or they're a nuisance to us, but yeah, they've got as much, if not more, right to be here than we do.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, it's it's um it's as much as possible I try to go for live and let live.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's not always easy.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, when you get when you get swamped by fruit flies and in the house in the summer, that's really frustrating.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_00: I just yeah, I can't with them.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_00: I can't.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is so peaceful.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's beautiful here.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can't you kind of forget that you're so close to a city.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean we've got an industrial estate right next to us, but you know, you can't really hear anything from it.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's A.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, let's just stop and have a listen to the birds for a minute.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: What are you getting?
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: So there's quite a few chiff chaff and then further further across there's quite a lot of chaff, so which I think it could be geese.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's a crow just behind us.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: Crow, crow, crow.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: Robin over there again.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's quite a lot of chiff chaff singing today, so it's you know, it's it's quite it's quite warm when that breeze drops.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um we've got a beautiful load of gorse in flower in front of us.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um yellow flowered, so became really spiky.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the spikes on that they're they're actually adapted leaves.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's evergreen.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and it a flower, I mean it's it's more in flower now than it would be at other times of the year, but you get it in flower all the way through the year.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a kind of a uh saying that goes when gorse is out of um when gorse is in flower, kisses in season, or it's the other way around when gorse is out of flower, kissing's out of season.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's two versions of it, but it basically means the same thing.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: So because gorse flowers all year round, you can kiss all year round, which is quite that's quite romantic, isn't it?
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so poetic.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: And and this is the thing, you know, that this is this connection again.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think when we look back, you know, previous generations had much more of a deep-rooted connection with the land, with with plants, understood, you know, the healing benefits of certain plants.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and that was very, you know, we still use a lot of our medicines come from um yeah, from plants from yeah, so aspirin from willow bark, and we're surrounded by willows here.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, um yeah, yeah.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_01: So salicylic acid, which is found in the bark of willow, um that's that's basically the basis of aspirin.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there's all sorts of things um that kind of come from plant basis and lots of you know therapeutic complementary medicines and um yes, it's they're just amazing.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's so important.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: So to wrap up for us, what would you recommend as three things people can look out for in their local park?
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, okay.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um spot a little bit.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would say just take some time, you don't have to know the species, but take some time to to stop and listen to bird song.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if you can find somewhere to just sit and and particularly at this time of the year and into the summer months, and see if you can hear different songs.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, how many different types of song can you hear?
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, some of them might be different variations from the same species, that's fine.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but just to note that variation, and I would say the same thing with with plants and and trees, yeah, is to just have a look at the different shapes and forms, the types of of leaf, the colours.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: So notice, yeah, notice.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: To really notice, yeah.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then it is find a uh find a way to kind of just stop and take a bit more time with something that you that interests you.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, taking photographs absolutely, yeah.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um but one of the things I'm looking at at the moment is green sketching, and I'm I'm kind of going to get back into that myself, and it's it's sort of sitting and taking just five minutes, just a really small notebook with a pencil, um, and just do some observational sketches of something that interests you, and um and get and you know, maybe take some notes about it as well.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um how it made you feel, and that's the sort of thing then in the winter, if you're not able to get out so much, yeah, those are the sorts of things you can kind of look back on and and and have still have that connection without having to go outside.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because it'll take you back to that place.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, fabulous, that's ace, and of course, the um readily available apps for bird song and things like that as well.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, of course, yeah.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_01: Use those and you know, take it with a pinch of salt.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't always work.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there are certain species it struggles to identify between.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, but it gets you in there, it gets you starting to see that variety of names and species.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, new world chills.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, yeah.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: Fabulous.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you, Roz.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: Chills, and great.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_00: I just loved listening to the birds.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: I loved just the the glow in your face when you thought you know you'd recognise what it is.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, connect with the robin and your little robin dance.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_01: To mimic how he's attracting his ladies.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even realise I was doing that.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't touch that on video, but that was safe.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's been a pleasure.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully we can do this again.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely, anytime.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, great.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_00: Fabulous.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_00: I am so proud that I can now identify a Chifchaf when I'm out on a walk, and if that's the only bird I know for now, that is okay.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wearing that with pride.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: Roz, thank you so much for such a grounding and generous walk.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_00: Your knowledge, your calm energy, your enthusiasm, your excitement to the outdoors is just so infectious, and it made this walk just such a happy, happy memory for me.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you're near Lancaster, I wholeheartedly recommend joining one of Roz's wildlife well-being walks.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_00: And do be sure to check out the Wild Roots Nature Festival.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds excellent, and it's happening between the 13th and 15th of June 2025.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: A wonderful celebration of community and connection through nature.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've enjoyed this episode, please do make sure you like, share, subscribe, and check out all the other previous episodes and see what you like.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_00: And do feel free to let us know and engage with us on social media.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're available on LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Substack, and Blue Sky.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope to see you all soon.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep walking.