In May, Milford on Sea hosted its annual music festival, this year rebranded as "Greener on the Green!" 

There were all sorts of festivities to enjoy, workshops to attend, and live music to dance to. With a name like "Greener on the Green," it's no surprise that the festival's emphasis was on sustainability and greener living. All funds raised during the event have supported local greening projects. 

A new wildlife group, Wings, staged their debut performances at the community centre during the festival. Wings is a new community group founded by Keith Metcalf. Its aim is to encourage youngsters to take an active interest in the natural world. The group currently has a team of five local women, collectively known as "the Girls with Wings" who are keen to share their nature themed story-telling skills with youngsters and to help children become young wildlife champions of the future.

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.”

During the festival, the 'Girls with Wings' read nature stories to children through the week. While they were reading, pictures from the books were projected onto a large screen so that the younger children could follow the stories in pictures.

Keith continues, “We have been developing the nature story-telling project for nursery and pre-school children since June 2019, but having lost nearly two-years to the pandemic, we are only now getting things up and running. In the meantime we have been working as a part of Team Wilder, a Wildlife Trust programme, and with Milford Conservation Volunteers (MCV) who has partly funded some of the initial set-up costs.  

“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. 

More about Keith

Keith is an active member of his community in Milford-on-Sea. As well as author of "The Natural History of Milford-on-Sea" and Where to Watch Birds in Milford-on-Sea & Keyhaven." He is a member of the Milford Conservation Volunteers, a Wilder Community Leader with Team Wilder, advising All Saints Church on its churchyard wildlife project, and most recently, the founder of Wings.

More about Wings
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