Here's another guest post from Charly Crump. Charly is the schools and green space outreach project officer for Bristol, working to engage local schools and families in the fantastic habitats and wildlife in the heart of the city.
June has been a fantastic month so far for exciting wildlife finds! We’ve had the luxury of being invited to some of Bristol’s most rich and diverse nature reserves by teaming up with our lovely colleagues at Avon Wildlife Trust. The launch of the Wildlife Trust’s ’30 days wild’ campaign at the beginning of June signalled a fantastic opportunity for us to team up and offer some hands on, family focused Wild Parks events based at their reserves around Bristol and Avon.
Says Court Farm is a solar farm on the North East edge of Bristol and an exciting partnership project between the landowners; council; and Avon Wildlife Trust sees an amazing opportunity for this site to become a haven for wildlife. That’s where our Aldi Wild Parks project comes into play. Although not strictly a ‘park’, the project offers the opportunity for the RSPB to offer free public events in green spaces across the 17 cities that we’re working in, including nature reserves; city farms; school grounds and even solar farms!
What did we catch this time?
This particular location offered the perfect opportunity to be armed with sweep nets ready to catch a variety of species: from bees to butterflies and grasshoppers and froghoppers. The meadow habitat in the farm’s open green spaces meant that we had a brilliant time swishing our nets across the long grass to uncover the marvellous minibeasts beneath.
Bug pot at the ready to take a closer look at our captors!
Fun for all the family
Teaming up with Avon Wildlife Trust not only offered us an amazing opportunity to offer free family activities in a local nature reserve, but also meant that we could share their expertise to help identify the diverse range of bugs; birds; and habitats waiting to be discovered at the site.
We’re really excited to have been invited back to Says Court Farm for yet another fantastic family event once the school summer holidays are well underway on 8 August. Watch this space and follow us on twitter (#wildparks) to see what different creatures we capture at this next event at the height of summer. To find out where we’ll be in Bristol, check out www.rspb.org.uk/wildparks and search for Bristol events or keep an eye out on Avon Wildlife Trust’s events pages: http://www.avonwildlifetrust.org.uk/whats-on
To find out when your next local Wild Parks event is, visit our website: http://www.rspb.org.uk/kids-and-schools/kids-and-families/wild-parks/
Our Wild Parks cities are:
Aberdeen
Birmingham
Bournemouth
Brighton
Bristol
Derby
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Leeds
Liverpool
London
Manchester
Newcastle
Norwich
Nottingham
Plymouth
Swansea
If you are interested in organising an event in your local green space within one of the above cities, please email: charly.crump@rspb.org.uk
** Free Wild Parks events are funded by supermarket Aldi single-use carrier bag levy in England, Scotland and Wales; run between May and August and aim to connect families across Bristol and Bath to nature **