My earliest memory of Watch Club, the junior branch of The Wildlife Trusts, was a pond dipping expedition.

We sifted through handfuls of hairy, green weed to find creatures for the viewing tank: vigorous water boatmen and poised pond skaters. That was the early ‘80s and the Watch Club movement was in its infancy; the Sony Walkman had just been invented and there were only three television channels.

Fast-forward to 2012 and children, the same age as I was then, now use iPhones to play music, computer games and explore the virtual world. They take their pick from a dizzying variety of school clubs, squeezed in among play dates, sports lessons and homework.

Yet despite these competing demands, Wildlife Watch is not only going strong, it is the UK’s leading children’s environmental action club. There are 150,000 Wildlife Watch members around the UK and hundreds of local Watch groups where young people get close to nature.

The Watch group at Stanford in the Vale Primary School celebrated its 25th anniversary earlier this year, and club leader and founder, Margaret Grant MBE, told me demand is so great that they never advertise for new members.

The afternoon I visited the group, the class full of children aged eight to 11 were dissecting barn owl pellets, (the indigestible bits of small prey that owls cough up). A couple of the younger ones were reluctant to start, but soon they were totally absorbed with their tweezers and cocktail sticks, gently prising the pellets apart to find tiny hip bones of shrews and jawbones of voles.

So what is it that these children enjoy about Wildlife Watch Club? “It’s really fun,” they told me. A chatty pupil mentioned that at their last meeting they had held a frog, which leapt out of their hands and went under the teacher’s desk. “What did that feel like?” I asked. “It was weird, but really cool!” came the excited response. The Stanford in the Vale Wildlife Watch Club meets once a month. With the enthusiastic support of four leaders and a few parent helpers, all volunteers from the community, they explore the local woods and river, and the churchyard that they’ve made into a wildlife sanctuary.

Over the last two years they have produced an impressive project on the lives of local trees; measuring, monitoring, drawing and recording what they found. It isn’t surprising that this club has a cabinet of trophies for services to nature conservation. Margaret Grant and all the volunteers love what they do. They are so motivated to give the children, whatever their ages and abilities, a practical and fun way of exploring their surroundings.

I didn’t know it at the time, but my school lunch hours with the Watch club were a formative period. Nowadays I write and design wildlife publications and take my children exploring outdoors. So “Thank you!” to my Watch leader, and to Margaret and all the leaders who help children connect with wildlife at Stanford in the Vale and other schools across the UK. Those children are forming bonds with nature without even realising it, which hopefully they too will pass on to their families. If you would like to set up a wildlife gardening or environment club at your school, find out how the Wildlife Trust can support your ‘Learning Outside the Classroom’ and have a visit from a BBOWT specialist to lead a wildlife workshop, go to http://www.bbowt.org.uk/discover-learn/schools-wildlife-watch or call 01865 775476.