Small and Perfectly Adapted

Conservation charities come in many sizes and conserve many things. The best known ones are the biggest, loudest ones but there are lots of little charities whose work and issues are just as important and whose staff and volunteers work just as hard, if not harder, to be heard. Buglife is one of these smaller charities with just over 15 staff members and based in a small office in Peterborough, which is where I visited them yesterday.

Buglife was launched in 2004 as the first charity in Europe to focus on the protection and conservation of invertebrates. Its work ranges from outreach events with young people and schools to challenging government policy on planning and brownfield development plans. They also carry out vital conservation work in the field to both protect and discover new knowledge of invertebrates throughout the U.K. If you are a member (or become a member) of Buglife you are in good company. Germaine Greer is their current President with Nick Baker (from Spring/Autumn Watch and Really Wild Show), Edward O Wilson (eminent authority of global biodiversity) and Steve Backshall (from Really Wild Show and The One Show) as Vice Presidents.

It's a lot easier to raise money for big fluffy animals than small wriggly ones but looking at previous Bug of the Month articles on the Buglife website reveals loads of fascinating creatures which are worth protecting, conserving and celebrating.  Here are just a few:

Stick Insects are becoming common in the South West.
 Picture by Malcolm Lee

Sunset Cup Coral is found in a few locations off the U.K. coast.
Picture by Yoruno

Common Wasp found through out the U.K.
Picture by Paul Padam

                                                     
My  volunteering with Buglife yesterday involved looking at their online media presence and also an introduction into how the organisation works. I was very pleased to see that my Bug of the Month article on the Common wasp has received over 200 page views and was very interested to learn about the charities brownfield sites conservation work.  It was an exciting day and all the staff there were so welcoming (I didn't want to go home by the end of the day!). Thank you to everyone at Buglife, in particular to Dale who I'm working with, for looking after me and showing me the exciting work this great charity does.

A Family Affair

When I started this blog I wanted to write about my life, nature and how both impact upon the environment. I wasn't sure where to start but luckily there's a book with tips and ideas for exactly this - Blogging For Nature conveniently written by my Dad, Mark Avery (look at his website if you want to buy a copy!).

I've read Dad's blog since he started writing it and it's been an education in environment and conservation issues, as well as a good way to find out what he'd been up to while I was at university. My friends started reading it which was fine until they started telling me about the day's blog before I'd even started breakfast! Today, Dad's blog is about other interesting blogs, including mine, so thanks Dad!

This week I'll be writing about Albatrosses, Buglife, the Duke of Edinburgh Award, Eggs and I'll be back on my weekly walk in Preston and looking through this week's new veg box. If you've just discovered my blog, via Dad's link or just by chance, thanks for reading and I hope you come back and read more. Please leave a comment as I'd love to hear your views on my blog and the things I'm writing about.

Buzzing Around

What's black, yellow and good for the garden?

Wasps! If you said bees then you can have half marks. It's well known that bees are great at pollinating our gardens but wasps do this and more. Adult Common wasps eat nectar from flowers, pollinating as they go, but also kill pests, such as aphids and caterpillars, for the wasp larvae to eat.

Until last week I didn't know much about wasps, but then I started volunteering for Buglife. This small but perfectly formed charity is the first in Europe devoted to the conservation of invertebrates including insects, spiders and snails. As part of my volunteering I wrote this months Bug of the Month on the Common wasp, which is now on their website here.

While writing the article I discovered loads of fascinating new facts about wasps. Did you know that in the Midlands they're nicknamed jaspers, either because of the Latin for wasp being vespa or after their similarity to the striped mineral jasper?

Did you also know that at this time of year wasps are more likely to go for your crisps than your fizzy drinks? Earlier in the summer there are lots of larvae which the wasps tend to. While this is happening the adult wasps get small droplets of sugar water from the larvae, which helps sustain them. At this time of year there are hardly any young left and so the adults must find other ways of getting their sugars and carbohydrates. Crisps and fruit are great for this and so wasps are commonly found on fallen fruit or trying to get into carbohydrate rich foods during the Autumn.

There are also more wasps around at this time of year too. The numbers steadily grown throughout the summer, from when the nests are built in spring to now when their completely full and can hold up to 10,000 wasps each.

For more information on wasps and all other insects go the the Buglife website!

Falling Leaves

I can't believe how fast this week has gone! It's Monday again and I went for my weekly canal walk. I was lucky with the weather again too. Even though it had been raining all morning by the time I went out at 2:30pm it was a sunny day, although quite windy.

The wind was blowing lots of leaves out of the trees and the canal was almost covered with them in places. Most are still green but they're slowly turning yellow and some lovely oranges and reds. It's amazing how many different shapes and colours the leaves can be. Another colourful sight was all the wild flowers that are still out. Maybe it was last week's warm weather but I'm amazed how many flowers are still in bloom, even though it's October now! I saw three different types of purple flowers (the Himalayan Balsam I talked about last week is still there) and some white ones too.

There was still lots of birdsong all around but I think the birds must have been hiding today as I didn't actually see many. I did see mallard ducks, moorhens and pigeons and I'm sure some of the birds singing were sparrows but that was it.

Four red admirals on the ivy-can you see them all?

Even though it was windy there were other things flying around. I paused by a large ivy bush and noticed lots and lots of hoverflies moving from flower to flower. I shouldn't have been so surprised as I'd recently read September's Bug of the Month on the Buglife website, which is all about the golden hoverfly and it's fondness for ivy at this time of year. More on Buglife later in the week.
To my surprise, as well as the hoverflies, there were about six red admiral butterflies on the ivy. These big butterflies are really beautiful-although a few today looked quite tatty and might have survived a fight with a hungry bird at some point. When I looked them up on Butterfly Conservation's great website I discovered that red admirals are actual migrants. Last week I was impressed that house martins fly from Africa, I'm much more impressed that some of these butterflies do too!

As a walked back along the canal I tried to see whether anything had changed in the past week. There were definitely more fallen leaves and those in the trees still are definitely changing colour. It wasn't as warm and there were lots more berries on the hedges. I saw blackberries, haws, hips, sloes and plums, all just out of reach annoyingly. On the left below are pictures from last week and on the right are today's. Can you see any big differences? I can't get but I'm sure I will as the weeks go on.

Week 1

Week 2

Week 1

Week 2