Swallows and Malham Tarn

For the past few years Swallows have nested in North Wing building over one of the main entrances. This year once again the parents have laid eggs and four have hatched into young. The babies hatched a couple of weeks ago and are doing very well. The mother and father have been bringing food back to the young regularly and the chicks have grown very fast.

End of June to mid July

At the end of the exam period, centre has become very busy again with 24 groups visiting centre since June 18th. We have had a mixture of A level and Primary groups at centre for mainly residential trips with a few day visits.

Minsthorpe Community College, Titus Salt, Batley Girls, Kirkham Grammar, Quegs, Acrington and Adcote, Rugby School, Sale Grammar, KESH Academy, Highfields School, Ecclesbourne School all visited to start their A2 Biology course ready for next year. Claire's Court and Bexley Grammar also started their A2 Geography course.


Dixons Allerton, Tauheedul Girls, Gateways School and Ripon Grammar studied rivers and tourism as topics for their GCSE controlled assessment.


Primary School groups who took part in a variety of activities around the centre where Cracoe and Rhylstone brought their whole school of both KS1 and KS2 pupils. Giggleswick Primary, Rauceby Primary and Meanwood Primary all brought their KS2 students. They took part in a variety of activities including woods, ponds, rivers, team games and conservation activities.


Newcastle School for Boys brought Yr 7 students to take part in adventure activities and learn about the rocks and scenery of the area. Framingham Earl from Norfolk took part in their Discovery award for their John Muir course. Finally St Aiden's did a Freshwater day for their Environmental Science A level.

The weather has been fairly nice with some days reaching temperatures of 24 degrees, which has been good for all the fieldwork.

We have had Emily Cooke a work experience student from Upper Wharfdale School at the centre for two weeks. Emily has taken part in many aspects of centre life, from helping in  the kitchen and cleaning some of the rooms in centre to experiencing fieldwork data collection for A level Geography and Biology.


There are some changes to education staff at the Tarn. Liz Earley our trainee tutor has been promoted to Tutor at the Snowdonia Centre Rhyd-y-Creau. We would like to wish her all the best in her new role. Jennie Richardson will be a new trainee tutor at the centre. Jennie has spent time recently teaching at our Derrygonnelly centre in Northern Ireland, we would like to welcome Jennie to the team at Malham.

How many members of staff do you need to evict a vole?

As part of the courses that we run at Malham Tarn Field Centre we trap small mammals using Longworth traps. They are set overnight in woodland around the centre, and staff and students go to check them in the morning. The traps used give the creatures food and a warm safe bed for the night away from predators, so they are not harmed. Species normally caught are Wood Mice and Bank Voles.


However to our surprise we found a lonely vole in the common room today. We managed to catch the vole and release him into woodlands out of the house. The only possible way the vole could have got into the centre would be via a window. Being set in the middle of woodlands in a National Trust Estate in a National Park does mean we sometimes have some interesting visitors.

National Trust Orchid House

After many months of redevelopment the National Trust have opened the Orchid House. The building on the Pennine Way behind the Field Centre buildings has undergone extensive structural and decorating work. The Orchid House was officially opened on Thursday June 9th. The facility is to be used as a classroom and event room by the National Trust. However the building now offers toilet facilities for people walking the Pennine Way and Information Boards for the area. Previously the nearest toilets to the Tarn were in Malham Village. This will now be very welcome for the thousands of people who walk along this path every year.

June so far...

With many A level and GCSE students studying for their exams we have been busy with younger groups and University groups. Staff from the centre have taught two Open University groups as part of their Environmental Science in the Field course. Leeds and Aberdeen have also run self taught residential visits to the centre. The students undertook many different interesting projects when they were here involving catching and releasing small mammals, catching and tagging birds and bat surveys.

Heatherton House, Westholme Middle School, Priestly College, Lomond School, Queen Anne's School, Cheadle and Marple College and Cardinal Langley High School have all visited centre.

May and June have been fairly wet months, probably to make up for the near drought conditions of April. Fishing is still going well with many fishermen being sucessful.


The centre is constantly updating fixtures and fittings and we have recently made the staff common room a bit more comfortable. If you are visiting soon, we hope you enjoy it!

May

After the Easter Break centre has been  very busy again with many groups over May. With exams taking place in schools we have had many visits day and residential from Key Stage 1 and 2 groups. Moorlands, Lady Lane Park, Settle Primary, Giggleswick Primary, St Nicholas,  were involved in sessions like rivers, rocks, soils and pond dipping. Whilst St Mary's School from Colchester completed their Discovery Award for their John Muir Award course and returned to school eager to set up and find Geocaches around their home area. They also presented back to the school and their parents everything they learned from exploring the Malhamdale area.

Other groups to visit have been John Lyon's School, Cokethorpe, Hull Collegiate and Archbishop Sentamu studying geography as part of their Year 9 and 10 studies.

Malham Tarn in JLS film

If you read our post from April you may remember JLS shot a short film sequence at Malham Tarn at the end of March. The footage that they shot was used in their film 'Eyes Wide Open.' Their film was in cinemas UK wide for just one day on the 3rd June. Did you manage to see Malham Tarn, when the group played football at the side of the lake?