Orchards, or gardens with a few fruit trees, are great places to find wildlife. Even small orchards are full of creatures to find, watch and discuss. Orchards also provide many topics of conversation. Everyone has experience of eating apples, of scrumping apples and we all like to discuss our favourite apple dishes.  

Barbara is often shy and lacking confidence when meeting new people. A series of encounters with orchard wildlife proved transformational in her interaction with staff and other participants.

Looking at pictures of orchard wildlife

Barbara was very quiet during the first part of our session on orchards. In a Leominster Meeting Centre session models and pictures of orchard wildlife were discussed. When a picture of a woodpecker was shown Barbara suddenly became very animated. She had grown up with apple trees in the garden, and could describe when she heard woodpeckers pecking and singing, and the marks they made on trees. Everyone present enjoyed what she had to say. Barbara’s voice grew louder, she started smiling, and then went on to talk about many other birds that can be found in orchards.  This led to a joyful discussion of favourite birds with everyone. We decided that in the next session we would visit an orchard to see what we could find.

Walking to the orchard ( a few fruit trees in a nearby garden). 

Before setting out on our walk to the orchard we discussed the woodpecker and talked about what other wildlife we might see. Barbara was quick to give suggestions. She chose to walk with me so that she could tell me about wildlife that we walked passed. In front gardens there were plenty of plants and bugs to inspect. Barbara’s interest in everything she saw was infectious, and others joined in. There was so much to see and to say!  The constant sound of lively comments like ‘Look at this!’,  ‘Have you seen one of these before?’, ‘What’s been eating this?’, ‘Smell this.’, ‘ I’ll pick it up!’ kept everyone interested. 

Picking apples, other fruit and hunting for bugs.

As we arrived at the orchard, Barbara said ‘I love being outside. I don’t mind bugs and like finding them. Do you know what this plant is? I do. I’m going to look in that tree.’ She delved into holes in tree trunks, looked under leaves, and inspected half-eaten apples. She called others over to look, and laughed when others didn’t want to hold the bugs she had found. She then enjoyed picking fruits from parts of the garden, and shared her treasures with others (apples, pears, blackberries, gooseberries, damsons, mint etc).

Babara loves nature. The joy she clearly felt in being able to share this with others as we explored the orchard was clear. She had helped her friends to have a lovely adventure. I had been a stranger, and now I was a friend, because we had both enjoyed the wonders of nature together.