activities/ clubs for a wildlife-mad 11 year old

[Fozzleyplum]

DS1 is a Chris Packham in the making; he's always been obsessed with interested in wildlife and ornithology - watching everything he can, reading about birds and wildlife and we plan our holidays to accommodate his interests. He would love become involved with a group of children who share his interest.

Our local wildlife trust has some good events, but they are a long way from us (an hour's drive typically) and tend to be for primary aged children or adults; there seems to be little for younger secondary school children.

My Googling has drawn a blank. Does anyone please know of any wildlife / conservation organisations or clubs that would fill the gap? We live in the East Midlands.

[HappyTurquoise]

Join the Wild About Britain website, there's lots of ideas there.
How about joining the Wildlife Trust? There should be lots of family activities in your county.
Photography is a good way in.
Your local wildlife parks and nature reserves will run various family activities, like bat walks, badger watching, etc at various times of year.

[Fozzleyplum]

Thanks Happy, the Wild About Britain website looks promising - hadn't come across that before.

We are members of our local Wildlife Trust, who have some good events and meetings. However, most are geographically quite distant and aimed at much younger children or adults. I was wondering if there were any more regular groups I'd not heard of - a sort of scouts with a wildlife/conservation slant would be ideal, but I have no idea if any exist.

If I can't find an organisation for his age group which meets regularly, I'll pick out the suitable events from the websites and organisations you've suggested.

[HappyTurquoise]

The WAB forum is a good place to ask, too. There's a good few experts in their field there.
How about bug club?

[Sympathique]

Could he volunteer for your local trust, rather than attending events? Would it be too far to go once a month, say? We did that for a while, monthly on a Sunday, and there were kids there doing it for scout/guide badges, etc., as well as older ones for Duke of Ed awards. They have to be accompanied by an adult if they're under ??16, 17??, but it's great hands-on experience, real conservation - we did pollarding, weeding, clearing ponds and river-banks. Your local trust website might have a 'how can we help' button, or a 'volunteering' one - or just email them and they should be able to send a list. We found a lot of the volunteering was during the week which wasn't any good for us, but by travelling we could do some at the weekend. Also, DD did some things with the Mammal Society - again an adult needed to be involved but she did some really great things - owl pellets were a favourite. Just don't ask about collecting fox scats... (OK, I didn't mind those, but it took time to get good at telling the difference between those and dog, goose, etc. droppings.)

[Fozzleyplum]

Scat - brilliant ideas, thanks. I think volunteering would definitely be up his street. We had a children's week at Aigas (the field centre which hosted this year's Autumnwatch) a couple of years ago; quite a few of the Rangers had been involved in conservation work and he was very interested even then.
I've looked at the websites and ideas suggested, and I reckon I can find plenty of suitable events - we've already found talk on ospreys laid on by the local Wildlife Trust for next week, which he fancies going to.