Kids Discovering Wildlife with 'Wings'

Keith Metcalf has set up a new group called ‘Wings’ to encourage youngsters to take an active interest in the natural world.

Last week Wings (Keith Metcalf’s new wildlife group) staged their debut performances at the Community Centre and on Milford village green by participating in the Greener on the Green – Milford Festival with five young ladies reading nature stories to children throughout the week. At the same time as the story-tellers were reading, pictures from the books were projected onto a large screen so that the younger children could follow the stories in pictures.

Keith told the A&T “We have been developing the nature story-telling project for nursery and pre-school children since June 2019, but having lost nearly two-years we are only now getting things up and running. In the meantime we have been working in partnership with Hampshire Wildlife Trust’s Wilder scheme and with Milford Conservation Volunteers (MCV) who has partly funded some of the initial set-up costs’. Keith said; ‘We thought that ‘Wings’ seemed an appropriate name for children as our stories mostly relate to British wildlife including birds, butterflies and things with wings. We also wish to reach out to other members of the community so another strand to the group will be for those still ‘Young at Heart’ with an interest in wildlife”.

The group currently has a team of five local girls, collectively known as ‘Girls with Wings’ who are keen to share their nature story-telling skills with youngsters and to help children become young wildlife champions of the future.

Keith said; “With so much talk about climate change, sea-level rise and carbon sequestration, it has not been hard to be drawn into the various conservation, environment and biodiversity issues that surround us, but to lighten the load a little for our youngsters, we wish to make sure that in future they have knowledge and the skill-set to lead themselves out of the mess we are leaving them in ……… but of course, to have a little fun on the way.”

Over the Milford Festival week the five story-telling sessions was appreciated by about 35 nursery and pre-school children and their parents.

Wings, a not-for-profit group, will be taking their stories and messages on the road later in the year to all nearby nursery, pre-school, church and library groups. 

They can be contacted by phone on (01590) 619533, text (07771) 918449 or email Keith at keithmetcalf@btinternet.com