Encouraging a biodiverse parish
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:
Sometimes the news can be a bit full on, and full of doom and gloom, especially when global heating and biodiversity are concerned. Positive News magazine is an online and print magazine for rigorous journalism about what’s going right. They report socially relevant and uplifting stories of progress.
Alongside a partnership with the National Forest they have highlighted a selection of articles that are “Positive News for Trees”.
Molescroft Wildlife Network is pleased to announce that we have been awarded an East Riding Community Action Grant to implement the Molescroft Hedgehog Highway Project. This award is for £1,500 and marks our second successful grant application is as many months.
We would like to thank Smile Foundation, Molescroft Parish Council, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust #TeamWilder and Wolds Hedgehog Rescue Centre for their help with this.
The Beverley Civic Society (An independent, non-political organisation that helps to preserve and promote the area’s heritage and community) is hosting an event: “Humber Forest: Community Forest Tree Planting Scheme – An illustrated talk” by Leah Cave who is the Humber Forest Partnership Manager, ERYC. The event is at 7.30pm on the 14th December at St Mary’s Church Hall.
For more details of the event, see here. Non-members are welcome for an admission fee of £5.
News from the BBC on an influx of a rare visitor to UK shores. The short-eared owls have been appearing along England’s east coast and has sparked interest among bird-watchers. Large numbers of the owls have been spotted at places including the Humber estuary. It is suspected that there’s a shortage of food in their native range which is driving this migration. According to the RSPB, short-eared owls were “of European conservation concern” as their numbers were in moderate decline.