The Big Slug Pellet Question
It is known to only affect slugs and snails and breaks down into useful minerals in the soil, iron and phosphorous. It can be used frequently but sparingly and I have found it has worked very well on my allotment. Wotsfink?
Some great firsts
Finbar: frog spawn in my garden pond on 30 January (not usually until the end of February or later!); bumble bee in Garnet Street (3 Feb); first sortie of worker honey bees (7 Feb) and a bee on a rosemary bush in Upton Road, but why was the rosemary flowering in mid-February?
Julia G: I was walking down the Malago path towards Cotswold Green. The two resident grey-wagtails had been looping along in front of me which always feels special and then I saw a flash of blue and was a bit taken aback and then it landed and it was a kingfisher!! I have heard people say there was a kingfisher awhile back. It is the first time I’ve seen one on the Malago and I’ve been here 30 years. It’s been a great bird week as the greater spotted woodpecker was also in the orchard drumming on Wednesday morning (13 Feb).
Show Me the Money!
Bristol City Council has funds which can be used to improve parks and other public spaces, including to enhance wildlife and bio diversity. See www.bristol.gov.uk/people-communities/funding-local-projects . It’s a good idea to talk to your local councillors before making an application. They should be able to help with the technicalities. Of course, you also need to talk to ‘owners’ such as park staff.
Academic Research
Nick Tew from Bristol University is an academic researcher with a particular interest in urban wildlife, especially the range of pollinators such as various bees, hoverflies and butterflies. He has forwarded several recent research papers that suggest how urban biodiversity can be enhanced. One study looked at four UK cities (Bristol, Reading, Leeds and Edinburgh) and different land types within them. Domestic gardens are identified as very important: although individually small, collectively, they represent a large area of any city. Domestic gardens embody the principle ‘every little helps’, with an estimated 54 to 83% of pollinators to be found in gardens across the four cities. The area given over to gardens was between 24 and 36% in the four cities, roughly the same as that given to public spaces such as parks and verges (27 to 35%), but gardens supported many more pollinators than do parks. With proper management, neither difficult nor expensive, both space types could do even better.
This is my favourite type of academic research as it confirms that BS3 Wildlife Group is doing the right thing, ie raising people’s awareness and encouraging them to make gardens, allotments, parks and other spaces as wildlife friendly as possible. What we are doing is worth while and does make a difference, so we need to try even harder. We need more Wild Gardens, Wild Streets, Wild Schools, Wild Churchyards, Wild Parks and Wild Allotments to progress.
What about cats?
People often tell me that they don’t get many birds in their garden because there are lots of cats around. Do you think that’s true or are there other reasons for the shortage of birds? What do you think?
BS3 Winter Garden Bird Survey
Our six month 2018-19 survey ends on March 31, whether in or out of the European Union. Please send your results to this email address:
MyWildBedminster@virginmedia.com
or, for hard copies, to Southville Centre, Beauley Road, BS3 1QG.
If they come in after April 15, they may miss the count. As well as being summarised in a My Wild Bedminster report, your observations will be forwarded to the wildlife records office (BRERC) and become part of the UK record. Our butterfly and moth survey starts soon. Will you join in? Have you bought your butterfly net yet? See www.watdon.co.uk as a possible source.
Our contact list now stands at 99. Can we hit 100 before the end of February?
Please pass this newsletter on to other people, if you can, and invite them to join the BS3 Wildlife Group.