Encouraging a biodiverse parish
The Wildlife Trusts has a really great set of resources for how to help nature in your neighbourhood at the Nextdoor Nature Hub. Obviously the easiest way to help out in Molescroft is to join the Molescroft Wildlife Network, but if you’re not in Molescroft Parish you will find all kinds of useful links from how to make birdboxes, to how to develop community groups focused on nature, and see amazing stories about local action for a nature positive world.
The Forestry England blog has a lovely review of some of their conservation success stories over 2023. Ranging from beaver reintroductions to the amazing story of the saving of the Wollemi pine from extinction there’s something for everyone whether you prefer your conservation stories fluffy, feathered or spiny!
Are you a young person working, or hoping to work, in the environment sector? Or a conservation leader? The 2024 Youth in Nature Summit might be right up your street.
The 2024 youth-led Summit is organised as a collaboration between BTO’s Youth Advisory Panel, RSPB’s Youth Council, and WWF-UK’s Youth Ambassadors.
As we look forward to 2024 (wait, what do you mean it’s already here!?), a positive story about wildlife in Yorkshire was published by the BBC before Christmas looking back at 2023.
The “exciting sightings” are from the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and include sightings of pine martens, otters and ospreys, showing that there is hope for biodiversity in Yorkshire, if we are prepared to work for it.
The RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch 2024 runs from 26-28th January 2024. Sign up at the link and join the world’s largest garden wildlife survey.
This is a great way to take part in assessing biodiversity trends in garden wildlife. Can anything knock the house sparrow from its most-observed top spot?
The Wildlife Society has a great post on the benefits of feeding birds, not only benefits the birds (especially in the lean winter months) but also has a mesurable beneficial effect on the psychology of those people who love feeding our feathered friends.
However, during outbreaks of avian influenza, some organisations were cautioning against feeding wild birds in order to stop disease transmission. The interplay of disease, wellbeing and policy are explored in a paper in “People and Nature“.
12 Days Wild is a festive nature challenge, encouraging people to do one wild thing a day from the 25th December to the 5th January each year.
In the quiet days between Christmas and New Year, winter wildlife is just waiting to be explored. Your wild acts could be little things to help nature, like recycling your Christmas tree or feeding the birds, or ways to connect to the natural world, like taking in the calm of stargazing.
The 12 Days Wild Challenge is an initiative of the Wildlife Trusts and you can sign up to participate here.
The RSPB has a great page on the do’s and dont’s of feeding your garden birds. Although feeding birds can be an all year round activity, it is of course particularly valuable over winter when food sources are scarce.
The article covers everything from where and when to feed, how to set up your bird feeders for maximum benefit to wildlife, as well as what not to feed birds, and this might not be what you were expecting if you are used to leaving out bread for them (especially in spring), and how to feed them in a way that doesn’t attract other visitors such as rats, which have been known to predate on wild birds.
The Soil Association has published a series of articles on health and sustainability over the festive period.
A small highlight of the articles:
