Rye Meads' first ever BioBlitz

Afternoon all,

How are you?

 The results are in!

Last weekend we had our first ever bioblitz at the reserve. Over the weekend of 14 and 15 July we tried to find every single species (of anything) that is here at the reserve.

A BioBlitz is an "intense period of biological surveying in an attempt to record all the living species within a designated area. Groups of scientists, naturalists and volunteers conduct an intensive field study over a short, usually 24 hour, time."

And we got you all to help us!

 Kingfishers were probably the favourite bird seen over the weekend! Picture by Simon Hurwitz

Over the weekend we asked everyone to record all the different wildlife they saw.
Unfortunately, rain made Saturday a bit of a wash out, but Sunday made up for it!

A HUGE thank you to the Herts Moth Group who came along to look for all the moths we have on site and got slightly soggy!

I thought I would let you know what we have found!
Instead of telling you all the different species (we'd be here quite a while) I thought I would tell you totals (unless you would like a whole list?)

Over the weekend 14-15 July we saw:
62 species of birds
50 species of minibeasts (butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies, snails, beetles etc)
19 hoverflies
108 moths
145 plant species
1 lichen
8 mammals
1 mushroom
8 fish
1 reptile
28 species of different pond creatures
1 species of rotifer (a tiny microscopic animal)
5 species of algae
2 species of protozoa (a unicelluar organism)

Which is a whopping total of 438 species found over the weekend!

There are a few gaps in our knowledge that would bump up our total score (bees, wasps, spiders etc) - I am going to invite the experts that couldn't make it along (due to the rain) on another date and see if we can expand our total numbers for the whole reserve! How exciting!

Well done everyone!

I will be posting again about what else we got up to over the weekend... Keep your eyes pealed!