Wildlife Event - 5th/6thJune 2015
After several months of planning, BET hosted a most successful two-day wildlife event in our woodland reserves. The event had been well publicised via flyers, local newspapers and social media. The good weather helped to make sure we had good attendance from existing members as well as attracting new families and visitors.
We were also very fortunate to have the support of a team of brilliant nature experts who shared their knowledge in such an enthusiastic and informative way. We had over 200 visitors and everyone went away buzzing with excitement at what they had seen and learned!
The event started on the Friday and over 100 schoolchildren from Backwell Junior School came for walks, pond-dipping and bug-hunting. The experts really brought the woods to life for the youngsters.
On the Saturday over 100 more people of all ages came for a programme of nature walks, bird-spotting, more bug-hunting, pond-dipping, etc, plus children’s activities (colouring, badge-making, etc) and rural crafts, notably green woodwork and pole-lathe turning.
Other attractions included a Barn Owl, a Tawny Owl, a Kestrel and four Kestrel chicks (which everybody loved) plus musicians and displays about local wildlife.
One aim of the event had been to celebrate BET’s tenth anniversary – and this was achieved with a lot of tea and cakes, including two specially-made birthday cakes.
Underpinning the event was a Bioblitz with the nature experts identifying over 400 different species (plants, mammals, invertebrates) on the Backwell site, ranging from the huge (oak trees) to the impressive (peregrine falcons, buzzards) to the very small and quite unusual (24-spot ladybird, ‘pseudo scorpion’ and flea sedge). The full list of species, which has since been added to over recent months, can be found here:Nature and Wildlife menu
We would like to thank all the experts and helpers over the two days, plus the Backwell Scouts for the loan of the marquees and other equipment.
You can see lots more photos of the event here: Album
Event sub-committee:
Carrie Riches
Martin Brasher
Peter Speight
Ian Chambers