A summer of workshops at Dundreggan
Summer at Dundreggan has had its scattering of sunshine and even a day of 25 degree heat in August. A bit late, but we’ll take it! The sun was shining on the last of a series of summers workshops held at Dundreggan, led by Alasdair Taylor, one of our Long-Term Volunteer placements during summer.
Alasdair is an unusual mix of Aussie accent and fluent Gaelic speaker, and is keen to promote mindful engagement with the natural world as a therapy in itself for those with mental and physical health issues. To further this mission, he recently founded a social enterprise called Earth for Life which delivers environmental education and ecotherapy in a growing number of regions throughout Scotland.
On the first Gaelic in the Landscape workshop, participants looked for story and meaning in the Gaelic names left scattered on OS maps of Glen Moriston, and also invented a few new names for their own special places they found after a day of exploring our Conservation Estate. He has also led weekend sessions on edible and medicinal plants, which involved a series of successful foraging outing and resulted in several tasty soups as well as a pretty effective midge repellent (separately of course!)
The Woodlands for Wellbeing weekend workshop focused on green spaces and the outdoors as valuable assets for the treatment of mental illness and the maintenance of good mental health.
Dundreggan has over the last two months also hosted training sessions on dragonfly identification and biology led by Colin Hall; tree identification with Dan Puplett, and a morning of Moth Madness led by local moth recorder Mike Taylor in association with Butterfly Conservation Scotland. Despite the “cool and moist” conditions over Dundreggan for the majority of the season so far, we have had a very successful summer of events.
