16 June 2007
By the middle of June we had expected a return of the earlier spring sunshine but it was not to be and some beefy showers proved off-putting for this Saturday event at Durgan. A handful of adult HMCG members joined Margaret on the shore but the younger generation were less robust and missed a very pleasant morning on the shore.
14 January 2012
‘A sewn boat? What’s that?’ ‘Well, it was a way of constructing boats in the Bronze Age, about 2500 BC, before nails had been invented. With the tools available at the time, bronze axes and adzes, logs would be split and fashioned into planks, to be stitched edge-to-edge with fibres from yew branches. Moss was used for caulking.’
Our speaker, Andy Wyke, was well qualified to tell us. As Boat Collection Manager at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, he has been one of the prime movers in a project which will use ancient tools to build a 60ft replica Bronze Age boat at the museum this summer (Apr – Sep), in an open workshop on view to the public.
Saturday, 11th December 2010
Is that a pin-tailed duck? No, it’s a long-tailed duck. Isn’t that a gannet? No, it’s a black-tailed godwit. We were trying to identify birds on David Chapman’s jumper, knitted by his mother who had produced separate jerseys for different talks. His outdoor gear depended on conditions, one photograph showing military-style camouflaged top and trousers, plus a back-pack to carry a tripod, camera and lenses and a chest-pack containing a portable hide. When erected, the last looked like a camouflaged igloo, just large enough to accommodate David and Adrian Langdon for several hours bird watching at the Walmsley Reserve. His account of that outing was returned by Adrian with the comment that the phrase “the mud came nearly to the top of our wellies” had a typographical error in the final word!
21st August 2012
The weather didn’t bode well for our Rockpool Ramble event at Prisk on Tuesday 21st August, with heavy showers hitting hard as we drove to our meeting point. However, by the time we all assembled at Mawnan Church car park the sun was shining and the afternoon turned out to be warm and beautiful. We were a small group with only three families from Helston, Truro and Perranporth, and a keen naturalist from Penzance who very kindly recorded our day’s findings for the Environmental Records Centre for Cornwall and Isles of Scilly. I was also joined by three enthusiastic members of the Helford Marine Conservation Group – Paul Garrard, Dave Thompson and Rhiannon Pipkin.
19th January 2008
The hidden world of our Helford creeks was revealed to a large gathering by the well-known marine broadcaster and retired lecturer of the University of Exeter, Dr Tegwyn Harris.
Sunday, 5th September 2010
“I waved goodbye to the couple I had just killed”. What an excellent quote to relate to Amanita phalloides, the Death Cap fungus. Pauline Penna had just dug one from the field adjacent to Scott’s Wood and she passed it round the group, pointing out that the gills were white, not grey-black as in a mushroom.
Sunday, 6th September 2009
Over 30 friends and members of the Helford MCG gathered at Mawgan Village Hall for an evening “bat talk and walk”. Dr Carol Williams, with her characteristic enthusiasm, delivered a 30 min. crash course in bat identification, life-cycle and habits before we ventured out into the gathering gloom assembling in the woodland car park on the Trelowarren Estate. Bat detectors swung into action immediately and to our delight we heard several pipistrelle bats as they hunted for insects overhead using their stuttering echo-location calls.
