Nature News from RSPB Scotland

EPISODE 23 - CONNECTING TO NATURE

• RSPB Scotland

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Stephen and Kate are visiting RSPB Scotland's Loch Leven reserve to find out how to really connect to nature. Freya and Daniel from the visitor experience team at the reserve explain the difference between just spending time in nature and connecting with it. Stephen tags along with a group of blind and visually impaired people who are learning about birdsong. There's nature news and a lot of chat about peewits.

LINKS

The latest on Bird Flu https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/how-you-can-help-birds/disease-and-garden-wildlife/avian-influenza-updates/

Find out more about Visibility Scotland https://visibilityscotland.org.uk/

Watch Daniel and other staff from RSPB Scotland Loch Leven connect to nature
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PvzmKm59bA

Unknown:

This is Nature News from RSPB Scotland.

Stephen Magee:

Hello and welcome to our podcast Nature News from RSPB Scotland. I'm Stephen Magee. This is where we bring you stories about nature from global news to the little things we're noticing every day.

Kate Kirkwood:

And I'm Kate Kirkwood, there's never been a time when staying in touch with nature and acting to protect it has been more important.

Stephen Magee:

We are keen to hear your nature news. Whether it's the little moments you've experienced or your thoughts on the big issues affecting the planet. You can contact us on Twitter @RSPBScotland or you can email us at podcast.scotland@rspb.org.uk.

Kate Kirkwood:

And please subscribe and leave us a review because it helps other folk find us in this podcast jungle.

Stephen Magee:

Hello, we are at Loch Leven. Lovely isn't it?

Kate Kirkwood:

It's lovely. We are standing in amongst the trees. So we are getting slightly midged, but eh...yeah, lovely day.

Stephen Magee:

It's very slightly midged. But it's just kind of like a nice reminder that you're outside. It's alright, it's not death by midge yet - you know that will come. We are joined by Daniel and Freya who work kind of on the Visitor Experience side here at Loch Leven. Hello. Hello,

Freya Playford:

Hello.

Daniel Wright:

Hello.

Stephen Magee:

This is a lovely patch you've got, you're very lucky.

Daniel Wright:

Yeah, a little bit

Freya Playford:

We may have done some bribes.

Stephen Magee:

It's very, very nice. And we are here today - we're going to be kind of talking about really, it's about the idea of like connecting with nature, right, which we'll get in this properly later on. But essentially it's that idea of like you can be in nature, you can experience nature, but really connecting with it is maybe a different kind of a thing and Daniel's like the expert on this. Yeah, he's...

Freya Playford:

I'll just stay silent and just let him take the floor!

Daniel Wright:

I wouldn't say the expert, but I like to think of... I've had the experience, been quite lucky with situations in my life that have led to me kind of accidentally discovering nature connection. So it was one of these accidental discoveries one day out in the beach in Donmouth in Aberdeen at four o'clock in the morning that led to one of these experiences that just kind of blows your mind. And then from then on, I've kind of been really interested in finding out the scientific basis behind the psychology because I always feel like it's important to have kind of a psychological basis or a scientific reason for the way we feel because feelings can be wishy washy. And it's quite difficult to describe them and especially when you're a male, sometimes you're kind of brought up to hide these emotions. So having a nice scientific reason for the way I felt was kind of really important for me, and then I realised it had such a large impact on my life that I can maybe use to help other people.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, well, we will get into that more later on.

Kate Kirkwood:

Sounds fantastic. So exciting. And I have been keeping my nature

Stephen Magee:

It does sound fantastic, particularly when you hear more about the four o'clock in the morning beach, getting your mind blown. But as ever, it is niche and using the title, news to myself. I wasn't going to tell Stephen until just now right. So the first thing we do is our own nature news. I'm going to start - I was filming this week with some of our staff and neither of us have been sharing this because we wanted who work with farmers on trying to make farms better places for waders. One of the things that they are doing is monitoring to be quite good about this. I also have a lapwing story as breeding waders, which means going under licence looking for nests and chicks. So yesterday, I got to see a lapwing chick that was less than a day old. It was so fresh, that it still had little bits of shell stuck to its back. Tiny little floof and it'd gone completely flat on the ground totally flat on the ground. And to be honest, if it hadn't been pointed out to me, there is no way I would have seen it. It was amazing. So yeah, no, it felt really, really special. well. This is a crazy coincidence.

Kate Kirkwood:

Yeah. So I have been exploring my new patch where been taking the dog on long walks and just sort of wandering through like field margins and lots of really beautiful beech avenues and they're like proper old like walking ways and trackways and things And I was going through a patch and I heard these slightly weird theramin kind of 1980s that synthesiser sort of noises coming in. I was like, what on earth is that? And I popped my head out of the woodland, and there is lapwings there is like a field full of lapwings, all displaying and doing their amazing like, wonky flying and kind of displaying towards each other. And honestly, I've never, I've heard them making the kind of peeping noises. But I've never heard the kind of laser beam noises that they make

Stephen Magee:

Yes, it's an incredible repertoire isn't it.

Kate Kirkwood:

And they were so close as well. And I was just like, this is amazing. I can't wait to use this for my nature news. And I can't believe we both got lapwing stories.

Stephen Magee:

Well that's peewits. Right let's see, Dan, is it peewits or is it something else?

Daniel Wright:

No, unfortunately, I mean we kind of get sick of peewits here. Luckily, I'm joking. I'm joking. They're amazing. Never, they are incredible. But it was at Loch Leven here as well. And so after listening to your Atlantic Rainforest episode, I was gonna go for a little trip to Loch Lomond myself to go to Inversnaid, take a day walking around, looking for all the birds - wood warblers, pied flycatchers, and then my sister decided to ruin my plans and come visit. So thanks sis.

Kate Kirkwood:

How rude!

Daniel Wright:

But luckily, when I came back to work here, someone told me there's a wood warbler on the hill.

Stephen Magee:

Really?

Daniel Wright:

Yeah, it was absolutely incredible because it's one of those birds I've always wanted to see. And I've always heard so much. And it's kind of because I know they're associated with Atlantic Rainforest. We don't really have any here in the East of Scotland. It was one of these kind of mythical creatures almost and find that there's one here on the reserve I come to and go to from every day almost. It was just incredible. So I went up and found it so easily as well as such a kind of an iconic call and it's so easy to picture it and it's just one of those amazing experiences where you're standing on the side of the hill here. And you know, back in the 60s this was essentially a misshaped grass field, no trees here and now the fact that we're getting one of these kind of iconic woodland bird species in this part of the reserve.

Stephen Magee:

That's brilliat, yeah.

Kate Kirkwood:

There you go.

Daniel Wright:

Made me really happy

Stephen Magee:

Freya, your nature news.

Freya Playford:

God, the pressure's on on now. So we actually had a couple of school groups in this week. And because they were so big, I was helping our learning officer Anna with them. And yesterday, we had a whole bunch of kids down at the first hides, so we were doing some pond dipping, it was great fun. Nobody fell in. I was so relieved because we had one in the other day. I promise I didn't kick them. But basically we'd gone into a hide and there was just a swan just drifting on on the water looking really elegant. I don't know how they do it. Like how do they look so elegant all the time?

Stephen Magee:

So serene isn't it?

Freya Playford:

And then these little fluff balls, little cygnets were following on behind this really elegant mommy swan. And they were just the cutest thing they just look - you kind of just want to like nuzzle them because they look really cute like they're just so fluffy.

Stephen Magee:

For clarity...

Kate Kirkwood:

I'd advise you not to nuzzle them

Freya Playford:

Don't anybody ever do that!

Stephen Magee:

The formal RSPB position is please don't nuzzle baby birds.

Freya Playford:

But yeah, they just looked so cute, so fluffy. And just amazing to see. And all the kids got super excited by it. Though they weren't entirely sure what it was I think the teacher ended up getting more excited because I think she knew what it was but the kids were like 'oh my god it's fluffy!' that tends to be my reaction to a lot of things as well to be

Stephen Magee:

And I think that one of the nice things about - honest. because at like Lochwinnoch reserve, right, it's a really good place to see swans. And a couple of times I've been there and there's been families looking at the swans and I think you know birders sometimes can be a bit you know snobby about particularly about mute swans but because they are a big bird that's charismatic and is around quite a lot. They're a brilliant kind of like, gateway bird, you know, like an entry level, it's like you see it, it's beautiful. It's a thing that you can notice. People get very emotionally attached to like how swans get on in their patch, you know, and how the cygnets get on and stuff like that. And that's how the vast majority of people get interested in nature. That's how they get in to it. They don't come straight in at wood warbler, right.

Daniel Wright:

Yeah, definitely not.

Stephen Magee:

You come in at mute swans and your work your way up to wood warbler, right. Yeah.

Freya Playford:

Well you'd hope. I mean, I feel like I'm still at mute swan level and he told me about the wood warbler the other day, and I was like, what does it look like? What is it?

Kate Kirkwood:

It's all right, we're all still learning. Will have to go look up a picture.

Stephen Magee:

It'sw a little greeny brown guy, but it's how it sounds isn't it. Yeah, it's an amazing thing. It is not just our nature news. It is also like wider nature news and I wanted to focus on one story this month because we had an email from Rhiannon in Shetland asking a lot of really good questions about bird flu. And so first of all, Rhiannon thanks for the email. The main things - a lot of questions in there I think are kind of known unknowns, like really hard things to know, but there are a couple of things I think it's worth focusing on. One was she was asking about gulls and about it spreading into gulls. I mean, the good news for bird flu this year is that so far we're not at this point seeing like the mass die offs of seabirds that we were seeing in the past. You know this last winter, although there were somevery significant mortality of geese in Tyree and Islay, we didn't see similar things like we'd seen before and down at Mersehead. But the bad news is that gulls are now getting quite hard hit particularly black headed goals. And so far not in Scotland, the black headed gulls here, there's a black headed gull...

Daniel Wright:

There's a huge colony here and they seem to be fine, yeah fingers crossed.

Stephen Magee:

They are fine so that's good in Scotland so far that it's not showing up, but it is showing up in gull colonies down south. Reserve at St Aidans lost hundreds of black headed gulls. So gulls are very much where the focus is just now and Rhiannon was right to ask about that. She was also asking about collecting dead birds. And that's a really complicated question. And I think the first thing to say is that bird flu is an unprecedented event. And we are learning about how we deal with it as we go along and what the best things are to do. There have been some limited instances with RSPB has chosen to pick up carcasses usually for - because there were specific worries about the disease getting into very rare populations of birds. But the thing you've got to keep in mind is that there is although it's a low risk, there is a risk to human health from bird flu. And like you want to minimise staff's exposure to that. And if you think of bird flu is something that might last for three, four, you know, who knows how long we might be dealing with this strain. How many times do you want to expose people to that risk? And if you're going to do it, you want to do it for really good reasons. So it's something that's constantly under review. But it is, you know, in most places, if birds are dying from bird flu, there'll be some testing hopefully of them to establish what's happening. And that's why it's important that people report dead birds. But the birds probably will be left in situ.

Kate Kirkwood:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think as well, it's very, very difficult and what we're beginning to learn over most recent events around kind of pandemics and epidemics and sort of things that are spreading within populations and human populations as well is that we can do the best we can with the information that we have at that time. And if we learn to do better, we can do better or differently. But it's yeah, we don't always have the answers straight up. And we can't always go unprecedent before either as well.

Stephen Magee:

We can't. But people should be assured on the more positive side of things that this summer RSPB and other partners and government agencies are committed to collecting an enormous amount of data about what's happening with bird flu. And that's something that hopefully later on this summer, I'll be looking at pulling together a podcast focusing specifically on that so again, Rhiannon, thanks for getting in touch there'll be more information to come. But unfortunately there are a lot of questions we can't answer. So as previously discussed, we are here at Leven because we want to talk about the idea of connecting to nature. Actually first things first, Daniel, what happened to you in the beach at four o'clock in the morning?

Daniel Wright:

Oh, that's quite a story really. But the short version of it was it wasn't the best time in my life. I just left university and didn't really have any prospects to be honest. And I just couldn't sleep that whole night and so I just decided to go out for a walk at 4am, down to Donmouth as you do, which is a nice little nature reserve but it was just when I got there, I saw 1000s upon 1000s of gulls and I knew nothing about birds so you're talking early about the how the swan is a gateway bird, mine was gulls.

Stephen Magee:

That's nice! Yeah.

Daniel Wright:

Which is yeah, not your usual one but um, and it was I just sat on the beach was quite dark to see all the lights of the harbour in the distance and just 1000s upon 1000s of gulls flying over my head must have been on a migration route or something. I'm not quite sure. But for that hour, I just kind of forgot about everything else that was going on in my life. And now I know having read psychology it's called like a transcendent moment where else I like to think of it makes you feel so small in the world which is almost quite comforting because you realise that your problems are kind of so small and isolated and that there is this much bigger world around you. And so that was kind of my my gateway burden to just nature in general and kind of my whole life and then the RSPB because it wasn't long after that I started volunteering for the RSPB to find out more about gulls and see if I can kind of inspire people to enjoy gulls more because they're very much maligned, unfortunately. Incredible birds but yeah.

Kate Kirkwood:

It sounds like a really beautiful experience. I really like the way you describe kind of how some people might not feel comfortable with being teeny tiny in the world, but it's a really beautiful way the way that I saw it when you're describing it as like it's almost like when you were feeling, when you're going through that difficult patch, your life is so magnified by your thoughts and you're looking at it under like a really close microscope. And then being able to go out into the beach and having this sort of nature, wow moment, this experience transcendent moment, it kind of just pulls the focus out. It's like great big cinematic shot, and it opens everything up. And you can kind of see the bigger picture. Yeah, it's really beautiful.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah about wood warblers and stuff!

Daniel Wright:

And for that whole next day, next few days, it pretty much all I could think about was that moment, really, and then it gave me you know, space and time to think about what my next steps in life are. And then, you know, I'm standing

Kate Kirkwood:

Yeah, it's such a different journey as well. in a forest chatting about it with you guys on the podcast.

Daniel Wright:

So I'm very lucky.

Stephen Magee:

Is that the key thing in this distinction

Daniel Wright:

Yeah, it's a difficult one, because I always between connecting with nature and just being in it. It's about see it, as you know, you've got your moments like that, which the intensity, and the focus. And the, the kind of - yeah kind of pull you out of yourself almost. Because it is so focus I think is probably the word, right?

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, we will put a link in the show notes to the magnificent, but you're not going to have those in your everyday life. And so, I like to think of it as something you also go out and do intentionally. So there was video, and we did a few kind of activities. And we would go out and intentionally connect with nature. video, but I was there a couple of weeks ago, yeah.

Daniel Wright:

And then I like to think it is something I do kind of I don't stop really, it's you know, if I'm walking down to the local shop, just to see what's reduced. Yeah, exactly. You know, I'll notice the little plants that are coming up through the pavement, you know, I'll see - check if there's any swifts about yeah, I'll say 'oh what's that flew over my head?' and you know, I'm constantly on the lookout for nature, because it is just part of who I am now, and it constantly kind of pulls me away from all those negative thoughts and makes me realise I'm part of a much bigger world.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, Freya you took part in - so the video is like a session that Dan ran for staff here at the reserve. And it was really interesting to see it like going out and actually doing just a few simple things. Right? So there was like a listening task where you had to listen and like you're trying to expand your sound bubble out, right. So you experienced that there was also some stuff like things like writing notes right, to nature and put them into trees on biodegradable like bits of bark and stuff, don't worry, it wasn't littering. What was that like as an experience for you?

Freya Playford:

It was, it was honestly incredible. I've just - what Dan was saying, like nature connection it doesn't have to be this big thing like nature connection for different people can be something so small or something so big. And it's just it's all about just taking that moment to kind of appreciate that there is this bigger world around you and kind of take that in, like if you go out for a walk just take a moment to actually listen to what's around you or just appreciate the world that is around you. Because we stopped and I was stood in the woods with my eyes closed, which is always a bit risky around the staff here because they like to play jokes all the time. But I was literally stood with my eyes closed and Dan had basically asked us to just try and imagine the stuff that was initially closed to us and then kind of just allow that to grow and just try and reach your kind of sound vision further. But you just...

Stephen Magee:

It's pushing your horizon.

Freya Playford:

It is, yeah.

Stephen Magee:

It's that consciousness of the horizon and that and those kind of like layers around you, yeah.

Freya Playford:

But you start and you just you can hear the things like initially quite close to you. And the more you focus on it, this sound bubble just slowly grows and grows. And then you just you realise there's so much more around you than you could have ever imagined. And it's just taking that time to just take that in. Because it's incredible. We all live such busy lives that we never actually take that moment like I work in a nature reserve and I'm very guilty of not actually taking that moment, which is shocking. But that was the first time that day that I'd actually come and sit outside and actually just taking a moment to appreciate.

Kate Kirkwood:

I was just gonna ask you about that actually, it's like we're all in really privileged positions where nature is part of our jobs, we do get to go to amazing places, you get to come here on a daily basis. How does that feel as someone who is in those spaces actually being able to take and deliberately intentionally take that time out? What's that experience like? How does it feel?

Freya Playford:

It's one of those - I'm awful for it because you always tell yourself there's more important things to do. Like I have to be doing this, I've got to deliver that, I've got to do this, that and the next thing, but actually being able to just go on a walk, even if it's for five minutes and just take a timeout and just appreciate everything. It almost brings everything back into perspective. Because whenever I come out here I'm suddenly like, no actually what I'm doing is part of something a lot wider like yes, okay, I can be really focused on my computer right now and doing this and the next thing, but actually taking a moment to stop, you suddenly go- hold on this is what it's about. And this is what we're trying to get people to understand.

Stephen Magee:

So, one of the things, Daniel, like when I came in filmed you guys doing it right. RSPB Loch Leven nature reserve is a workplace like any other, there's a mix of people here, right? So obviously everybody's interested in nature. But there are some people like with quite like a, like a dry kind of sense of humour. Right? Who would normally be pretty sceptical about like what you would see as like, hippie nonsense, right? And there are some people who are definitely...

Daniel Wright:

I'm one of them.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah! And there are some people who are more at home, like, you know, the emotional language, or like Kate is very...

Kate Kirkwood:

I'm full blown hippy.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah! You know, so there's some spiritual people there. But the key thing about this is actually, there's an enormous amount of scientific evidence to back this up, right?

Daniel Wright:

Oh, yeah, it's huge and it's growing bigger and bigger. I mean, there's been bits in the past, but it's only really been since about 2015 this stuff has really taken off. And that's - it kinda coincided with my gull experience. So I feel quite lucky in that way as well. This was kind of starting to grow as I started reading about it. And I think it's just incredibly important that we can quantify these things. Because like you said, it does sound like a lot of hippie nonsense, to be honest. But it is kind of the core reason behind the ecological and climate crisis that we're seeing.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah it's our disconnection with nature that's causing these cultural things yeah.

Daniel Wright:

And one of the things I like to talk about in my presentation at the start of the event is football really That's really cool, I'd never considered it and the only thing because I'm a huge football fan. But when we look, you know, through football teams and their logos and everything, we do see our kind of vestiges of our connection in relation to nature, because you know, think of something as tribal as football, people identify themselves with animals. I mean, just look across the top three divisions across Britain of all the football teams. And there are so many teams that you know have their logos nature, their mascots is nature, and kind of how they see themselves as kind of a part of their nature. that pops into my head is Newcastle being magpie. Yeah, magpies.

Stephen Magee:

Like the owls and so on....one of the teams, Sheffield Wednesday, yeah.

Daniel Wright:

Then you got West Brom, who literally have hawthorn and song thrush on their logo as well, right?

Stephen Magee:

Brighton has seagulls, yeah, yeah.

Kate Kirkwood:

I'm, as you can tell, I know nothing about football. But that's a really cool way of linking it in.

Stephen Magee:

And the wider point is like a wider, a wider

Daniel Wright:

Yeah, I mean, it seems since there was a study cultural relationship with nature, which was such a big done, and it shows kind of how the degradation of nature thing for us, for the vast majority of our history as a species has been compromised by, like these last bits of related words in our culture and our arts, in our literature and modernity, right? Like the Industrial Revolution, and all the things that followed it. And then ultimately, that is, it is everything to do with our culture really, and it's no coincidence that the climate and biodiversity crisis have happened at the same time. declined massively since the 1950s. And you know, the number

Kate Kirkwood:

Yeah as something that gives us something of egotistical words, the words about us and relating to us has increased exponentially as well. And I think that cultural connection to nature is quite important. Because again, it's how we see ourselves as people. And if you look at kind of indigenous cultures throughout the world, I think I read something crazy other day, indigenous people make up 5% of the world's population, but have 80% of the world's biodiversity

Daniel Wright:

Yeah, it's not something that we connect ourselves with. And I feel like it's important to increase our on their lands. And it's just because they have that cultural cultural relationship with nature so that we can have the benefits of, you know, our mental health, it hugely relationship to nature. And we see nature as something that increases our mental health and how we see ourselves as people. And you know, maybe that's partly connected to the reason needs to be exploited and abused and used... that we have a growing mental health issue in the UK now as well and across the western world.

Stephen Magee:

I went to talk about one other aspect of connection and that is, I was lucky enough, a few weeks ago to go to a session that was run by the giving nature a home team in Glasgow, which was working in partnership with Visibility Scotland, which is a charity that works with people that have experienced various ranges of visual impairment or sight loss. And it's something they've tried it before, it's working with birdsong just in central Glasgow it's very simple, folk go out in it for a little wander in a green space, and listen. And David who's a warden at Baron's Haugh came up and like help people like understand what they were hearing. It was an amazing experience. So here's a flavour of what it was like on the day.

David Anderson:

I'm David, I'm the warden at Baron's Haugh. So we're here in the west end of Glasgow, and showing a group of people who have visual impairments how to listen to songbirds in the middle of the city. So I'm just going to point out one of the louder songs we can actually hear at the moment is actually from one of our smallest birds. So right up the top of that tree that bird that you hear and going dee dee dee dee dee dee. That's a terrible impression. I'm sorry, make up your own impressions in your head what it is is. But that is a coal tit. So some of you who don't know what a coal tit looks like, imagine a really tiny bird that has a head like a badger. That's the way I think about it. The robin, now one of the most common birds you'll find in your garden. But it's also one of the only birds that we hear singing right throughout the year, because robins are really territorial. So if you ever see a couple of robins in your garden, you're quite often see them having a right go to each other because they don't like anyone else coming in on their patch. So they will protect their territory all the time. That's whyyou hear robins singing all the way through the year. A watery kind of song, it is quite weak compared to some of the strongest songs that you hear. It is kind of melancholic a little bit and quite light. I mean, I think one of the things that are recognised in birdsong as you describe it to yourself in your own terms, so one of the ones I always use an example is a bird called a yellow hammer. And you hear that in farmland areas. Now everyone describes that song as a little bit of bread and no cheese. I've never heard it say that in my life. In my head it's more a dadadadeee, I don't hear it say that. But that helps some people. So it's very personal how you listen to a song and what it says to you.

Sheila Donnelly:

I'm Sheila Donnelly, and I've more pretty much always been registered blind, since I was a baby. You don't have super super hearing, but you learn to use it more. And you learn to use your hands more to feel things. For me, bird sound and birds have become really a major thing in my life. Because I do have a wee budgie. And I've had budgies for over maybe about 25 years. And then when I had a garden about 20 years ago, I've had a garden now. And so birdsong has been lovely for me because I can't see them. And I can't see anything else that's going on in the garden. I have this wee blackbird who sings its heart out every night even into the dark. And I feel as if he's singing for me. And I know he's not, but the song is so haunting that it feels that way. And it just gives me a feeling of awe and it lifts my spirits and helps with feelings of depression. And it's something that I can hold on to that I can still enjoy. Today has been wonderful for me to learn what some of the birds are. And I can sit out in the garden now and listen and enjoy more. And even just to talk about the birds makes me happy.

David Anderson:

And that's a great tit. So the great tit, the classic birdsong that people always describe as teacher, teacher. So this one I can kind of hear. So a teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, that two tone birdsong. There's a robin singing above us again.

Anne Strain:

My name's Anne Strain, I've had five strokes, and after the third one, my vision started to go. It went completely after the fifth one. I've got no vision at all now. I am finding it quite difficult, considering I've just really not been able to read, I liked arts and crafts and I can still crochet. So that's a help. And I listen to book tapes. But my husband is a bird watcher. And to be honest with you, I'll go with him to certain places, but not been overly interested apart from wanting to draw them when I could see. But today's been absolutely fascinating. And I'm dying to go home to him to tell him how many we heard. And I'm just trying to remember the names so at least I can get a couple of them so I can say to him, you know, I heard this one, I heard that. But yeah, it's amazing where the ability to see has gone but see when you take that extra wee step and for me, it's confidence because I've lost alot, that you take the extra wee step and another world just seems to open up. It's fantastic. It really is. It just shows you that your world hasn't stopped because that was exactly how things felt to me.

Stephen Magee:

What are your feelings when you hear those songs?

Anne Strain:

Just one of joy. I mean, as I say I've always heard them at the house, but it's one of joy that I've heard it I think. But I'm really wanting to express to other people, for goodness sake close your - I joke a bit about this at home, and I'll say to people, close your eyes then you'll see, you'll understand, you know. And some people have and other people 'I can't do that, I can't do that'. But if people honestly close their eyes and listen, I never did it when I could see, but that is tremendous. I mean that what is like six months worth of enjoyment for me kind of thing, because it just means so much. It's really good.

David Anderson:

So often when you are doing guided walks, you lean a lot in the visual stuff, you point to a bird and say, look at that bird, isn't it beautiful. But here, you had to change your thinking a little bit, because a lot of them had different levels of visual impairment. So they couldn't see lighter, darker, couldn't see the colours. So concentrating on the sounds and listening to what you hear and then describing in words in different ways. It was, it was really interesting to do. And it was really enjoyable as well. Because I think you kind of I want to say open people's eyes - but open people's ears to the nature around them. And actually, it was really touching to see their reactions and listening to them talk about and how enthusiastic they got because you're giving them a perspective of nature, which they'd never maybe appreciated before. And yeah, it was it was really really enjoyable, really different and something I think we're definitely going to keep doing because it's yeah, fantastic thing to do. Everybody should be able to access nature in whatever way they can. And I think this just shows you just one of the ways you can experience it that you know through the sound through what you're hearing is just as amazing, just as incredible as you know, seeing a beautiful bird hearing them sing is just as impressive as other ways so it just shows you that whoever you are, whatever you do, however you want to experience that there's ways to experience it and that's what's really important about this I think.

Kate Kirkwood:

It's such a pleasure to hear about what other teams are getting up to and listening to people's experiences, I think it's really heartening to hear those the two ladies that spoke about their different experiences of sight loss and birds.

Stephen Magee:

It was quite emotional.

Kate Kirkwood:

And I was particularly kind of hit by what she was saying about the birds in the garden and listening to the song birds and actually just kind of expanding her world a little bit as she was sort of progressively losing her sight. Being able to listen in for other senses, and it is the cliched thing about your senses changing as you lose one, your sort of other senses kinda begin to compensate. But I think it's

Stephen Magee:

I think it was because on the one level talking such a reassuring, is that the right word? to people about sight loss is inevitable. And she said herself, right, you know, it's a difficult experience to live through.

Kate Kirkwood:

Quite isolating.

Stephen Magee:

It can be isolating and a sense of your world narrowing. But what she had found that nature had done for her was to really help combat that. Right, which makes it really important that we as organisations that manages reserves that work with communities make nature as accessible as we can to everybody.

Freya Playford:

Yeah, definitely. So at Loch Leven here, we basically, we've just done a revamp of our whole centre to try and make it as accessible as possible. And me and Dan are actually both working on projects on the reserve to try and make our other areas of a reserve more accessible. So the project that I'm working on is actually, it's a project to try and revamp our play area, and try and make just play in nature as accessible to as many audiences as possible. And so that's introducing different things such as different touch, and different

Stephen Magee:

All the sensory stuff.

Freya Playford:

Yeah, all the different sensory activities, and trying to make play equipment more accessible for different accessibility needs. And then Dan, I don't know whether you want to talk about the leafy look project that you're working on. So that's where we're stood actually right now.

Daniel Wright:

So my project is to make the leafy loop area which is quite, it's already quite inaccessible area, it's quite flat. And it's not very hilly, but it's loads of nature, it's inside a little forest area, and my project's essentially to try and help people that come here to connect with nature. So you know, one of the big findings of the research is that time in nature does not necessarily mean that people are connecting with nature. So if you just out for a wander with your dog, doesn't necessarily mean that you're kind of engaging with nature and taking all your - using all your senses or noticing all the little patterns or the beauty and the trees and the leaves. So my project is to essentially try and get people to connect with nature easier just kind of through, not quite shocking them, but opening their eyes through different little things and it'll all be revealed in the future, it's probably the best so try not to reveal too much, yeah.

Kate Kirkwood:

It all sounds very top secret!

Stephen Magee:

Dan, you're king of the tease!

Daniel Wright:

You're just gonna come back and do another video.

Stephen Magee:

We will come back and do another video. And we should say as well that like kind of big capital investment level here at Leven, for a start, right, you've got a massive all access kind of trail that goes pretty much right around the loch now you know, the off reserve which we are now linked to with an underpass that you know, there's the stairs with amazing mural, there's also like access for anybody who's wheeling or who's got like bit of a mobility challenge to be able to get through that underpass access to walk back up, then the Visitor Centre has got like the accessible toilet block as well.

Freya Playford:

Yeah, so we've got the changing places bathroom as well. And we also have accessible ramps, so our cafe which is upstairs in the building, it's all accessible from the ramp outside. But yeah, it's all...

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, much of that supported by the people that play the People's Postcode Lottery and other funders as well. It's just that there's been a huge rolling programme here, right. And beyond that, I suppose we also need to recognise that when we're talking about accessibility in nature, we're not just talking about people who got maybe got a challenge in terms of like sight loss, or their mobility or whatever. It's also about people's access to green spaces, people who can't get to Loch Leven, thinking about how you make nature - and that's been the giving nature a home team.

Kate Kirkwood:

Absolutely. And I think what's really key about all the work that gets done around accessibility, whether it's like you say whether it's to do with physical access, whether it's to do with actually just having green spaces around you and the teams that work in our communities is that actually we work with them to design what we do. So making sure that they're part of the process of designing what we do, because no one knows better than the person who's experiencing the barrier of how to kind of overcome that they can tell you exactly what they need and what they want as well. And I think that's a really valuable part of that. So I know for a fact when Colleen was working with Visibility Scotland from the giving nature home team, she sat down with the team there and talked to them about what their service users need and what they use and how they approach barriers that maybe we just don't ever have experience of doing.

Stephen Magee:

I think, to bring it all back together, right? The common theme between the nature connection thing, and the working with communities thing, and the accessibility thing is about intentionality. It's about thinking about the thing that you're doing and then making it happen, right? You know, if you want to connect with nature, you can't just go and wander, you have to have an intention. If you want to have a relationship with a community, you can't just turn up and expect them to fit in what you do, you've got to have an intention.

Kate Kirkwood:

Exactly.

Stephen Magee:

You know, and that I'm looking around at the wider work. Like, I think that's the thing that's really impressive - the work in these fields, right?

Kate Kirkwood:

Yeah, exactly, and I think it's something that we all are, we're all doers. In this organisation, we love doing things and making things happen. And it's a thing for life, just in general is actually, like you were saying earlier Freya, about just being so busy, and having so many other priorities. It's taking that minute to think about, who am I doing this for? What am I doing it for? How am I addressing those challenges? How am I breaking those barriers? And it's yeah, I think it's a really great way to live with intention.

Stephen Magee:

Well we are doing this podcast for you, dear listener. So do make sure that you get in touch with us. Let us know if there's things that you want us to cover. If there's stories you want to know more about. You can get in touch with us at podcast.scotland@rspb.org.uk or@RSPBScotland on Twitter.

Kate Kirkwood:

And as always, as I share with everyone, please share an episode with someone that you think will be interested. It really helps us get a wider audience and reach everyone as best we can. So do like and subscribe on the podcast. It helps other folk find us in the podcast jungle.

Stephen Magee:

It does indeed. One other thing about housekeeping. Kate is moving onto greater things within RSPB, which means I think you'll still be popping up in the podcasts here and there.

Kate Kirkwood:

Yeah, I would hope so, you don't get rid of me that easily.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, not that easily. But there's going to be some changes to like getting the format of podcasts. We're still working all that through. Kate, thank you for being in from the

Kate Kirkwood:

Aw, I've loved it. And thank you so much for very beginning. asking in the first place. It's given me so many opportunities to visit amazing places, speak to amazing colleagues to find out what they're doing. And also just an opportunity to talk about the amazing work that we all do and the amazing communities and people that we work with and make that happen with and also nature's awesome.

Stephen Magee:

Nature is awesome. So the podcast will still be here but it might be changing a bit but we'll you know we'll keep in touch and make sure you subscribe to the feed and you'll find out what happens. Thank you guys for having us here today.

Freya Playford:

Thanks for having us.

Daniel Wright:

Thanks for coming along.

Stephen Magee:

Beautiful patch and we shall see you down the road. Goodbye.

Kate Kirkwood:

Bye!