Buzzing about BioBlitz

You may be asking ‘what is a BioBlitz?’ Well, it’s a day of recording all of the various species of wildlife found. This is what we have recently done at Denmark Farm on Sunday 28th July 2019.

What a fantastic day we all had! We worked closely with West Wales Biodiversity Information Centre (WWBIC) who kindly contacted all the Ceredigion Local Recorders who specialise in different species and invited them to take part. Toni and Sophie from WWBIC also joined us for the BioBlitz day to record all the findings on their database.

We had experts in bryophytes – Tom Ottley, plants and lichens – Steve Chambers, birds – Ian Morris and Robin Franks, terrestrial invertebrates – George Ryley and Liam Olds, moths – Martin Lovell, Paul Taylor and Aline Denton, freshwater invertebrates – our fantastic team of Denmark Farm volunteers – Gretchen Taylor, Paul Crawshaw and Michele Gamage, ferns and other plants – Liz Probert and bats – Aline Denton. Many thanks go to all these amazing people who all gave their time freely for the day.

Their records are still arriving and being updated on the WWBIC database, but it looks as though there will be about 600+ different species found over the day! Tom Ottley discovered 3 new species of bryophytes for Ceredigion! And some less common moths, Devon Carpet, were found too by Martin Lovell. Steve found a Broad–Leaved Helliborine which is a new record for us, George and Liam found 70 species of invertebrates including a National scarce plant bug. Wow!

 

Images from left to right: Poplar hawk-moth, juvenile Saucer bug, Burr reed, newt

Common species of wildlife as well as less common were found, all of which are important, and which we now know all can be found at Denmark Farm nature reserve.

Everyone was kept fed and watered throughout the day thanks to Mara, Tomos and Jackie, who cooked some delicious pizzas in the cob oven for us all. 

 

All these records collected over the day will help us to monitor the biodiversity we have here. We’re hoping to run another BioBlitz day in a couple of years’ time and then we can compare results. This will help us to continue to manage this special place for the future and increase the biodiversity that lives here at Denmark Farm.

Many thanks again to everyone who was involved in the day.

If you would like to learn more about wildlife and conservation please come along and join our volunteer team or sign up for one of our courses or workshops.

You can also book a stay at Denmark Farm Conservation Centre. Choose from our self-catering Eco-Lodge, Bunkhouse or Eco-Campsite.

All profits from events and holidays at Denmark Farm help us to look after the forty acre nature reserve.

Blogpost written by Linda Bradshaw-Wood