Virtual Olympics give firm room to escape lockdown
AN ‘online Olympiad’ will bring sleuthing eyes from across the globe to a Valley attraction’s new digital offer.
Like all leisure businesses, Lucardo escape rooms in Rawtenstall has been hit hard after shutting for most of the pandemic - but lifeline breakthroughs in virtual gaming could save the day.
Escape room fanatics have been able to satisfy their fix of puzzles, riddles and clues during lockdown by taking part in avatarbased Gem Runner and Safe House games over Zoom.
And with the technology developing at speed, a totally virtual experience is now ready for launch. Players use point and click on their laptop/tablets to search the room for puzzle and clues.
Bosses at the Kay Street venue are buzzing after their all-digital Safe House game was recently selected to host the 30th game in the Online Escape room Olympiad. Players and teams from more than 40 countries will pay a virtual visit to Rawtenstall on Sunday.
Director Simon Milnes said: “I am over the moon to have our Safe House room used in the ‘Olympics’. We are helping to put our wonderful Rossendale Valley on to the world stage – showcasing what people in the valley have to offer.
“The online ‘Olympics’ have been created and maintained by a group of enthusiasts from Germany. It is a really big thing for us at Lucardo and will help drive traffic to us both online and in person when we are able to reopen.”
Last July Lucardo launched the avatar-based digital game – which works by a staff member wearing a headcam being directed around the room, but Simon is now very excited by the potential of the alldigital platform.
He says the virtual games are proving particularly popular with companies looking for new ways of team-building days and word of mouth from the Olympiad has already brought in bookings from Germany and the United States.
“I can be asleep in bed and be making money!” said Simon.
“We’re surviving – that’s all I can say at the moment. I will not be buying a yacht in Monaco, but this is allowing us to tick over.
“If this one goes well, which I expect it will do, I will be putting other ones online as well. There wasn’t really a market for it when we were open. But it’s opened the world to us now.”
●● FOR more information and bookings visit lucardo.com/rawtenstall.
AN outstanding nursery school is delighted to have completed its new community room that will be open for parents as soon as life returns to normal.
Bacup Nursery School has never closed throughout the pandemic, although initially it was only open for vulnerable children and those whose parents were key workers.
Since the last lockdown in December 2020, it has been school days as normal for all children.
The fantastic new facility, built onto the school’s staff room, extends the room by two-thirds and a bi-fold door allows the area to be divided for different uses with a separate entrance to the main school.
More than 100 pupils attend the Cowtoot Lane school, aged two to four, and they use the new space as an extension to their classrooms.
Headteacher Andrea Cooper said: “We are hoping that, if the roadmap goes according to plan, we will be able to have some meetings and events for parents before we break up in July. Especially for those whose children will be moving on to various primary schools.
“The room will also be ideal as a base for adult education, holding coffee mornings, parent and toddler groups and as meeting room for social groups as there is also a kitchen.
“When this last lockdown began, we made a commitment to our parents to keep our nursery school fully open to all.
“We knew how important it was for our families to be able to have a safe place for their children to continue to learn and it also enabled those parents to continue working and providing for their family.”
Many parents have written into the school to thank staff for their help.
Jayne Jordan said: “Bacup Nursery School has stood tall and gone above and beyond any of our expectations, meaning not only can I still work and provide for my boys, but a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders knowing my son is both being educated and cared for.
“Mrs Cooper has kept everybody safe and well, whilst still ensuring a happy positive place for the children. Each child, no matter what their ability, strength or weakness, is loved, cared for and nurtured, and taught how to grow.”
When a child has had to self-isolate, because someone they know has had a positive Covid test, the school provided the family with learning packs so that the child could continue with their education at home.
Sally Ogley said her son often struggled with social situations before he started at the nursery school.
She said: “The support and routine Bacup Nursery School gave to him helped him feel secure. He was well-prepared for school, which gave him confidence in his new surroundings.”
Leanne Feeney’s son started at the school in September. She said: “I was really nervous at first, nervous about Covid, nervous that my little one wouldn’t settle because all he had known for past nine months was being at home with his family.
“I really can’t thank all the staff enough, every day they open those doors with a smile and a positive attitude and my little boy settled straight away. He is coming home with a smile on his face and I am as well, knowing that my little one is having some normality and making memories.”
A TWO-YEAR-OLD hen harrier named Apollo has become the first Lancashire bird to migrate over 1,000 miles to Spain, where he has spent the past two winters.
The young male was fitted with a satellitetracking device before he fledged from his nest on the United Utilities Bowland estate in 2019.
The satellite tag has allowed scientists at the RSPB to follow his incredible journey, taking him all the way to Extremadura, where he spent his first winter in 2019/20.
Apollo then flew back to Bowland in the spring of 2020, returning to breed with a young female just a few miles from where he himself had hatched.
Incredibly, Apollo then repeated his journey to Spain in autumn 2020, following a dead-straight line to the exact spot in Extremadura – a landscape of steppes, forest and farming between Lisbon and Madrid, and one of the most biodiverse places in Europe. Meanwhile, Apollo’s brother Dynamo, who was tagged at the same time, has not ventured more than 50 miles from Bowland.
Hen harriers are rare, protected birds of prey that breed in upland areas of the UK.
Males are a stunning grey and white with black wingtips and around the size of a medium gull. Their population declined by 24 per cent between 2004 and 2016 in England, largely due to human persecution, an issue mentioned often in this column.
Initially it was believed that most of our tagged hen harriers stayed in the
British uplands all year-round. However, it has become clear that around 10 per cent of birds cross the English Channel for the winter, some bound for France and a few, like Apollo, for Spain.
None of the tagged RSPB birds that made it to Spain had made it back to the UK, until now.
Some of the birds would have died from natural causes, maybe even got lost which does happen.
Occasionally the signals from Satellite tags just vanish from the screen, or indeed show the bird heading in the complete wrong direction as with, for example, the Magnificent Frigate Bird spotted drifting past Southern Ireland, or the bearded vulture which visited these parts last summer.
As for Apollo, the truth is that a die-hard band of shooters in Southern European countries have never been that fond of visiting raptors, no matter how much European Law theoretically protects them and thousands have met their fate at the end of a shotgun barrel.
Thankfully, Apollo was able to avoid the lead shot and his Spanish wintering ground had everything he needed – for a few months away. None of Apollo’s chicks are known to have survived, but the RSPB is hopeful that Apollo will return to Bowland in the coming months and breed once more. I will keep you posted on any news and hopefully it will be good. Hen Harrier are a red-listed species of conservation concern and are heavily persecuted in the UK.
In 2020, Dryad - another Trough of Bowland bird - was one of several hen harriers to disappear in suspicious circumstances.
The last definite ‘fix’ from the tag came from a grouse moor in North Yorkshire. Just saying.
The UK Red List for birds keeps track of how different species are doing, and birds that are rated red, in need of urgent action.
Shockingly, one in four of our birds is now on that list, 67 species in total.
It shows that many of our top singers are in trouble, including iconic crooners like nightingales, skylarks and cuckoos.
But more familiar garden species are red listed too, starlings, song thrushes and even house sparrows.
The assessment is based on the most up-to-date evidence available and criteria includes conservation status at Global and European levels, as well as within the UK: historical decline, trends in population and range, rarity, localised distribution and international importance.
Nineteen species were red listed last year for the first time due to worsening population status and one species, the dashing Merlin, was returned to the Red list. In most cases, this is due to evidence from monitoring schemes which demonstrate severe declines in breeding populations, for example, Curlew, Nightingale, Pied
Flycatcher, Whinchat, Grey Wagtail and Mistle Thrush and surveys of scarce breeders such as Dotterel, Black Redstart and Slavonian Grebe, or by seabird monitoring for Kittiwake and Shag.
The Puffin is red-listed due to its global assessment as Vulnerable.
THERE’S a thing that happens in our village where people say: “Have you seen the kingfisher?”
It’s happened every couple of years since I have been here and it makes me think about various questions that need to be answered.
Is THE kingfisher that same kingfisher that people saw 17 years ago?
That would be pretty amazing as the average lifespan of this beautiful bird is just two years.
Is there only one kingfisher?
They definitely bred here a couple of years ago, I was watching a busy nest during summer.
So there must be at least two and then a couple more when the fledglings take flight.
Why does the kingfisher hide from certain people while others see it – or them – every day?
About a week ago, Julie and I were out with the dog and I got a clear view of a flash of blue feathers. Julie missed it.
I saw one at the same spot a few years ago.
The dog was sitting, staring at the river – pondering his lovely life - and I could see a bird on a branch above him watching with interest.
I watched it for about 30 or 40 seconds.
Then I was being interviewed about wildlife by a journalist live on the radio when a kingfisher flew in front of us and we able to watch it on a nearby stream.
So, I have been lucky to have had a few kingfisher encounters while other people have never seen one in their lives, my mum Elsie included. It’s not as though non-kingfisher spotters are not out in the country a lot, it’s just down to luck and keeping your eyes open.
One thing you need to realise if you are looking for kingfishers is that they are really quite small, only about 15cm in length, just a bit bigger than a sparrow.
And they might be a bright blue and copper in colour, but that is not easy to spot over a shimmering blue stream or river.
Your best chance to spot a kingfisher is if it stops to perch on a branch overlooking its larder, your local water course.
Younger birds will sit on the perches for some time if they are not disturbed.
A good starting point is listening out for the squeaky song of the kingfisher and then waiting, patiently, for it to appear.
Like all nature watching, patience is important here.
Just relax, enjoy the sounds of the countryside and see what appears in front of you.
With the kingfisher you may only see a flash of blue as it darts from one spot another looking for its dinner.
If you are really fortunate you will see one catching a fish in its long, black bill. They are often on the lookout for a perfect spot for fishing and will make use of branches.
I know photographers who set up their own posts in the hope that a kingfisher will land on them.
Most of us, though, are happy enough to let nature do its own thing.
That is the pathway to content and happiness – and, hopefully, a kingfisher.