Owls, September 25th

Building resilience and respect were major themes in this week’s fun

Autumnal apple efforts began this week’s session: the owls worked out a variety of apple collecting methods - ranging from the obvious climbing and throwing (ok if you don’t mind exploded fruit), through the William Tell method (a bit risky, less effective), to pedestrian windfall collection (less exciting, but most effective). The exercise also gave us a chance to think about how we can improve the environment for our whole community, whilst leaving some for the last wasps buzzing.

Camouflage allowed the owls to develop their dastardly and rather sneaky hiding skills - this aged sensorily dull lioness would have struggled to survive in a wilderness filled with clever and silent prey like these owls!

Playing pirates gave us a good opportunity to get strategizing and quite active problem solving - and also some thinking about the benefits of rules!

During free play, the poor apples were yet again under attack: the owls used their tools to create apple attack weapons, and shared weapons and expertise in sharpening their hand-eye coordination.

Free play also threw up some questions about respecting nature, then how to identify dead no longer needed foliage.

The day culminated at our river spot, with some resilient raft building, and rectifying last week’s ‘thorn’: each owl building their own mini fire-in-a-tin, and roasting a tiny marshmallow. It took a high level of resilience to get some of these fires to light, and we may need to replenish the Upstream stock of matches, but with determination, each owl made it through the frustratingly fickle balance between oxygen, ignition and fuel.

And what better to finish off the day than a golden surprise Police Horse visit!