Nature’s Olympics on the Millennium Green 20 June 2010

On Sunday 20th June 2010, Halesworth’s Millennium Green celebrated the amazing performances of the animal kingdom.

If animals were our size they could out-jump and out-run us spectacularly. Frogs would be able to leap 26m, cockroaches run at 150mph. In the whole day only one human managed to out-perform any of our animal Olympians – he covered the 10m track at half the speed of a snail!

By Emilia Bell, aged nearly 7:
“Nicky came to Holton St Peter School to talk about the Nature Olympics on the Millennium Green. I went with my brother Rory and we had a lot of fun. I ran a kilometre with my Daddy. We did a lot of squirrel jumping and we tried catching a mink (not real) with a stick. We also tried walking (balancing) on a log. In another part of the green we did pond dipping and willow weaving to help make a croconewt. We all really enjoyed ourselves”.

In the Folly people found material to build nests for robins and crows, tested their eyesight against a bird of prey, and were astonished to learn that an osprey’s nest is as big as a single bed.

At the pond-dipping platform they helped to build a species new to science, the croconewt, woven from hazel and willow. At 4m long, a gentle giant. Go and see it before it swims away.

The Millennium Green looks fabulous in mid-summer, with many of the wild flowers in bloom and the dragonflies hunting over the dykes.

The event was organised and run by the Halesworth Millennium Green volunteers who meet on the second Sunday of every month at 10 am to work on the Green.

The Millennium Green is 44 acres of meadows and riverside on the southern edge of Halesworth, close to the town centre.

It was set up in 2000 to provide an open space where people can enjoy nature and wildlife at first hand. It is home to some fantastic wildlife and has seen some amazing history. Otters, kingfishers and barn owls live here (but you have to be lucky to see them) and the canal, dug in the 1760s. used to bring large cargo boats from Blythburgh right up into the town.

Contact: Nicky Rowbottom 0771 504 7391