Birds, bats and dragonflies took centre stage at our Wildlife Day

Wildlife Day 2022 was a warm June day, although we were a little worried by the wind. It was blowing leaflets around and required plenty of guy ropes to keep the marquees in place.

One of the stars of the day was the whiskered bat which was in rehabilitation with the East Yorkshire Bat Group. Next to them in the marquee was the owl pellet dissection activity, which proved as popular as ever – we even had a vole on the stand (courtesy of Donald the cat) so that the children could see what the owls eat.

With so many experts attending, our Wildlife Day is always a chance for us to see discover more about the wildlife that uses our garden.

Here are some of the wildlife identified on the day:

Bird-ringing area

Greenfinch, blackcap, great tit, house sparrow, coal tit*, blackbird* and dunnock*.

* these species included individual birds that had been rung at the Wildlife Day in 2021, so they are making our garden their home.

Butterflies:

Small tortoiseshell, meadow brown, comma, ringlet, speckled wood, large white and green-veined white.

Dragonflies:

Azure damselflies were flying over the pond and we were pleased to recover exuviae (cast off outer skin) of hawker dragonflies and also of damselflies. The larva of dragonflies live in the pond, when they are ready to fly as adults they climb up a reed and moult, leaving an exuvia behind. During pond-dipping dragonfly larvae were found along with baby newts, water boatmen, pond skaters, ramshorn snails and water louse.

Visitors were also able to enter competitions, play wildlife games, learn more about the wildlife of Yorkshire and what they can do to help.

Thank you as ever to all the experts on the stands, they are all volunteers and are the backbone of conservation in the country.