Jenny Tweedie: Are you ready for Glasgow Wildfest?

I remember the summer of 1988 as a series of jumbled, disconnected events woven through with moments of huge personal transition. I broke my ankle that summer, the night before my first day at senior school, and spent three itchy weeks in plaster (there was an embarrassing interlude with a trapped ruler that I'd rather not think about). I got a pet rabbit that summer too, after many, many months of parental pestering, a little Netherland dwarf named Josephine.

A water vole.

But one other thing that sticks out in my memory from that summer was a school trip to the Glasgow Garden Festival; I guess it would have been in June or July. In fact, I found some of my photos from that trip just the other day. Hard to believe it was almost 30 years ago.

It was a seriously hot day when we went, and being Scottish kids that did leave us somewhat wilted and unenthusiastic. But I’m pretty sure we still did the festival justice: going up in the Clydesdale Tower, wandering around all the exhibits, and ogling the Coca-Cola Roller Coaster (from a safe distance). We all zonked out on the bus going home, wishing we’d brought more to drink.

Much has been written about the festival since that hot summer of ‘88: about its legacy, about what it did for Glasgow, but there’s a general consensus that the outcome was a positive one. Its success helped the city move forward, transforming its image from an industrial heritage site to a tourism destination, and ultimately, a city of art and culture.

Jenny Tweedie, RSPB Scotland.

But one legacy seems to get little attention: the green legacy. This was a garden festival, after all, and Glasgow was well known, then and now, as the dear green place. Almost 30 years on, has the garden legacy vanished? Just how green is Glasgow in this modern era of development and urban squeeze?

Greener than you’d think. Across the city there are dozens of organisations and small groups working in parks, community gardens and hidden greenspaces making a real difference to that green legacy. Take GOW, a flourishing community group focussed around a tiny, triangular garden in what would once have been a back court, hidden by high tenements. Or the Friends of Springburn Park, nearing the completion of a new community hub and garden on the south side of the city. FORK, the Friends of the River Kelvin, run weekly sessions along the river bank, picking up rubbish and removing non-native invasive plants.

And in December of last year, campaigners at North Kelvin Meadow successfully defeated an attempt by developers, to build on an area of greenspace transformed by the community from municipal football pitches. Children’s Wood offers forest school classes, and spaces where people can meet and enjoy the natural surroundings.

All these organisations, and many more, come together once a year for their own version of the Glasgow Garden Festival: The Glasgow Wildlife Garden Festival, or Glasgow Wildfest as it was re-named last year (because it was a bit of a mouthful!). Launched by RSPB Scotland in 2014, the idea behind Glasgow Wildfest was to capture the garden spirit of the original festival, and keep it alive by celebrating just how wild Glasgow still is.

Jenny Tweedie, RSPB Scotland.

Because it is a wild city. There are more than 90 parks and formal gardens in Glasgow, many of these improved with wildlife in mind in recent years. Add to this the usual array of cemeteries, private gardens, riverbanks, and even railway lines, and you find a city criss-crossed with wildlife sanctuaries and corridors.

Foxes are probably the best known and most visible creatures on Glasgow’s streets, but many of the city’s other wild inhabitants might surprise you. Peregrines have been known to nest on Glasgow’s high-rise flats, otters and kingfishers are making more appearances on and around the rivers, and the population of water voles, discovered a few years ago in the east end, is so large that it caught scientists by surprise. These tiny creatures have declined dramatically across the UK, but in Easterhouse, they live happily, away from water and well-adapted to their ring-side view of the M8, and the brownfield areas where they feed and breed.

Water voles are actually one of six “ambassador species” that Glasgow Wildfest helps to celebrate, along with bats, bumblebees, hedgehogs, house sparrows and swifts. But as much as Wildfest is about wildlife, it’s also about people. It’s about engaging people with their greenspaces, and encouraging an interest in activities such as planting wildflower meadows, putting up nest boxes for house sparrows, and taking part in community projects. Now in its fourth year, its success is a good sign that the garden legacy of the Glasgow Garden Festival is alive and well.

So why not come along this September and take part? Events run for the whole month at sites around the city, and there are activities from a massive bioblitz in the Botanics, to a civilized picnic at the Hidden Gardens, to the accompaniment of live chamber music. And keep a look out for wildlife while you’re there. You never know what you might see. Join in the conversation on social media using #Glasgowwildfest and find out more at www.glasgowwildfest.org

Jenny Tweedie, RSPB Scotland.