Help Needed One
On Saturday, 21 May Windmill Hill City Farm has its Wild Outdoor Day. As well as opportunities to see the farm, there will be stalls and activities. Both the Hedgehog Project and BS3 Wildlife Group will have stalls and we need a few people to help out for an hour or so between 11 and 4pm. Could you do a spell at a stall talking to people and, hopefully, signing them up as supporters? If you can help, please get back to mywildbedminster@virginmedia.com and indicate times that suits you.
Help Needed Two
The BS3 Wildlife Group AGM in March was poorly attended and our management committee is very small. One!!! This is both unfair and unsustainable. In particular, we are currently applying for money to promote our Malago/Pigeonhouse project and funders sometimes ask about the management committee. Please contact mywildbedminster@virginmedia.com to join the management committee and help to develop the organisation. If a few people share the tasks, it should not be too demanding.
Wildlife Street Parties
You may be having a Street Party or a Playing Out this year. If so, here are some examples of the things you might do to promote wildlife in your street.
Show and Tell: have a table in the street where people can bring wildlife relevant items from their gardens: insects, plants, photos etc. People can help to identify these as required.
Audit the Street: using a large map of the houses and gardens in the street. Invite people to indicate wildlife elements. Who has a pond? Bird boxes? Hedgehog visitors? Bird feeders? Bats? Squirrel visitors? Whatever?
Make a home for wildlife: residents can make and install a bug hotel and/or bird box. What are the best places? Make and distribute some seed ‘bombs’. If you were a butterfly could you easily move along your street from garden to garden. If you were a hedgehog or a toad, are there holes in garden fences that would allow you to move easily around a large territory.
Quiz and Play: there are apps which will play bird songs. How good are local people at recognising them?
Listen to the experts: there may be a wildlife enthusiast or two in your street already. Use their expertise. Or, it may be possible to invite someone from the Wildlife Groups.
Start a My Wild Street Group: neighbours getting together to promote more wildlife in their street over the next year or so.
Monitoring Birds, Butterflies and Spiders
To move Bristol from a wildlife hostile city to a wildlife friendly one we need to establish interconnected neighbourhoods with strong and varied food chains and lots of cover, especially for nocturnal creatures and those who hibernate. The Wildlife Groups tend to focus on establishing biodiverse landscapes, but it’s also important to monitor individual species and groups.
Our eleventh annual report on the Winter Birds of BS3 gives a clear picture of the roughly 20 birds (excluding gulls) that you are likely to see on a regular basis in this part of Bristol.
Secondly, we have great news about our Spider Group. It has grown by 50% in the last week or so i.e. from 2 to 3 people. The group is preparing an initial report on the spiders of Bristol, partly because it would be good to know what’s around, but also as a PR exercise. Many of us shudder a little at the sight of a spider, but they mean us no harm and indeed can be very helpful as part of the overall food chain both as feeders and fed upon. Please get in touch if you would like to be the fourth member of the Bristol Spider Group.
Hopefully, our butterfly spotters are busy collecting data for the 2022 report. Given that butterflies are an easily observed group, we are rather surprised that most of the recording (at least as submitted for distribution via Wildlife News) is focused on BS3. What are the butterflies of other parts of Bristol?
We know that some of the specialist groups are very assiduous in their reporting of species via iNaturalist and to professional recording agencies such as BRERC. That’s very important, of course, but if we are to influence public opinion and action, we also need to develop information links with ‘ordinary’ people. How do we encourage Bristol’s citizenry to be more aware of the city’s wildlife and to take action to improve habitats rather than destroying them?
Walking
Malago Trek on Saturday, May 28. Leaving ASDA car park (Southville) at 10am and arriving for a picnic at the top of the Dundry Slopes between 12 and 1 (probably).