The RSPB is a partner in an ambitious project to reintroduce the short-haired bumblebee to the UK, more than 20 years after it went extinct. The source of the bees is New Zealand, to which the species was introduced by European colonists in the late 19th century.
Our Dungeness nature reserve will be the release site (where I see that there has been a booming bittern recently) and it's where the bumblebee was last seen in the UK.
If you've never been to Dungeness then think about going - it's a shingle promontory that is like nowhere else in the country.
This is a collaborative project with Natural England, the bee charity Hymettus and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.