I’ve just spent the weekend in Conwy. I decided to head up to North Wales as there was a North Wales Moth Recorders’ Meeting at the Pensychnant Conservation Centre. I travelled there on Saturday, stopping on the way to do a few geocaches and arrived in plenty of time for the meeting.
After a coffee and a chat with some fellow moth-recorders we had a presentation by Zoë Randle the Moth Recording Coordinator for the Moths Count Project. She talked us through the successes of the Moths Count Project and Butterfly Conservations efforts to put moths on the map.
Butterfly Conservation have had funding from a variety of sources, and lots from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Zoë told is how this money had been spent. Most of has been spent on the website and the publication of national moth distribution maps. I’ve yet to have a close look at these, but they look pretty impressive, especially as many of them can be zoomed in to resolutions of 100m so that you can see exactly where moths have been recorded. Hopefully some of my records will start showing up on these soon. These really are ‘putting moths on the map’.
Money has also been spent on publicity and organising events such as the Garden Moths Count and National moth night. This prompted some ‘discussion’ as one person there in particular thought hat this was a waste of money that could have been spent on computerising historical moth records so as to allow for a better understanding of trends in distribution over time. However, I think that publicity and events are actually a good use of the resources they have. I for one wouldn’t be recording moths if it weren’t for such events. I may only be one small person doing my little bit but I’ve been recording moths, have been partly responsible for setting up the Ceredigion Moth Group and collating records from Vice County 46 and have been spending some of my time on a voluntary basis computerising the historical records.
Just a small amount of money recruiting new recorders and volunteers such as myself can pay dividends in the long run, which has to be better than directly paying to have historical records computerised. Of course such events also fall within the ‘community’ remit of the funding requirements which is why they have featured heavily in the activities of Moths Count.
After the ‘moth meeting’ I headed off to RSPB Conwy where I had a walk around the nature reserve where I saw a little Egret, found a geocache on the banks of the estuary and then stood and watched millions of starlings come into roost.
Not a bad way to spend a day and I almost felt like a naturalist by the end of it!
Little Egret, Conwy
As you may know from recent posts I’ve started moth trapping and have been part of the formation of the Ceredigion Moth Group. It’s all a little ‘geeky’ but I quite enjoy the moth trapping, as does Morgan and learning more about the creatures around us is always a good thing. Keeping records of them and submitting them to the various interested parties makes it all feel a little more worthwhile, and in a small way these activities may help with the conservation of rare species.
In some respects I would rather be actively contributing to conservation in this way than simply donating money to conservation charities. However, as well as actively taking part in moth counting and submitting results to the Big Garden Bird Watch we also spent some money recently on becoming members of the RSPB and Butterfly Conservation.
RSPB
There are a few RSPB reserves locally and we do often enjoy a short walk at the Ynyshir Reserve, so becoming a member seemed like a sensible thing to do. The membership fees obviously go towards supporting the RSPB which should be the main reason for joining, but you get quite a it for your money too. As well as free entry to their reserves you receive a Quarterly Bird magazine with plenty of interesting articles in it and junior members such as Morgan get a ‘Wild Times’ magazine six times a year, featuring the adventures of Owlbert, Rookie, Red the squirrel and Squeak the mouse. You also get free gifts if you want them and RSPB bird guide book (which I already had).
Obviously you don’t really join for these benefits, but we were pretty interested in what Morgan would get for his membership fee as it is these things that will keep him interested in the wildlife around him.
Butterfly Conservation
The Butterfly Conservation membership is similar. For your fees you receive free entry to their reserves a ‘Butterfly’ magazine three times a year, a welcome pack and a garden butterfiles ID guide, along with advice on attracting butterflies and moths to your garden
Of course, you also get a nice warm feeling at having helped the conservation effort of our wild British birds, butterflies and moths.
Both organisations have decent websites where you can join them or simply donate. They both have lots of information online, not just about the organisations themselves, but about the birds and butterflies of the UK too., so check out their websites and join up too.
Thanks to constant pestering from Morgan we have done our Big Garden Birdwatch. Morgan sat there quietly for a whole hour and helped me count the birds we saw. There was nothing unusual and all in all it was a fairly good representation of what we normally get in the garden, with only a couple of things missing.
The results were:
- Blackbird: 3
- Blue Tit: 2
- Carrion Crow: 2
- Chaffinch: 7
- Collared dove: 2
- Dunnock: 1
- House Sparrow: 10
- Magpie: 2
- Robin: 1
- Starling: 18
Morgan now wants to do the same in the front garden!
This weekend is the weekend that the RSPB have picked for their Big Garden Birdwatch.
All you have to do to join in and help with the data is sit down for an hour (preferably with a cup of coffee) and count the birds you see in your garden. You count the number of birds of each species that lands at any given time and then submit your findings to the RSPB. You can download a counting sheet to make things easier and then submit your results online.
I’m hoping to do it today, so don’t forget to join in. Every bit of data helps.
