Brown Hare - Photo: David Tipling/2020VISION
Anniversary Species Survey
As previewed in the previous edition of Essex Wildlife, as part of our 60th anniversary celebrations, we are asking our supporters to contribute to a survey of some key species found throughout the county. We’d like your feedback on just how common or scarce these species are in your local area.
The chosen six include some iconic species, plus some key indicators of change. Hopefully they should be familiar to most people and they should all be relatively easy to spot. Understanding the population status of certain species is really important and allows us to gain a greater understanding of the overall state of nature around our county.
It’s also a great excuse to take some time to immerse ourselves in nature and momentarily forget about the rigours of our increasingly busy lives. Watching wildlife can be very therapeutic and the mental health benefits are now widely acknowledged.
Why not involve your friends and family, or perhaps your neighbours? Maybe even get a bit competitive! I know I’ll be sitting in amongst the lavender this year and seeing if I can beat my record of five bumblebee species on one bush.
But don’t panic, if you aren’t a butterfly or bee expert, we aren’t asking you to identify exact species, we just want to know how many different varieties you have in your garden. For those of you with a more forensic mind, we’ll add some information to our website, which should help with identification.
