Thanks so much to Alice from Buglife, who came over to Seaford to talk to us about pollinating insects, and how to survey for them.
Buglife is a conservation charity, working in the UK with a current focus on pollinators, freshwater habitats and other species at risk of extinction in the UK. Their flagship “B-Lines” pollinator connectivity project is crucial to create green corridors to save our insects.
In Seaford too, we are trying to create green corridors for pollinating insects, with wild flower verges, and wilder areas in public green spaces, gardens and verges.
Pollinators are in trouble, for example half our bumblebee species are in decline, as are two thirds of our moths and 71% of our butterflies. Pollinators need flowers for nectar and pollen.
It’s worth remembering that pollinators also need various different habitats in which to nest. Alice pointed out some holes in the bare ground of the Salts where ground nesting bees had been at work!
There was great interest in this event and a waiting list, but the ten lucky participants learnt about the basic differences between bumble bees, hoverflies, and other insects.
Alice caught and potted a few bugs so we could take a closer look at them. These included bees, moths and hoverflies.
We also had a go at recording pollinators using the “FIT counts” app which was created by POMS, the pollinator monitoring scheme .
Unfortunately it was a misty and overcast morning and though there were a few bees about, we only managed to count one insect – this hoverfly in our 50cm square patch in our ten minute count!
Anyway now we know how to use it we have no excuse – we will be picking some more locations (on more sunny days!) and will get counting!
Thanks so much to Buglife, we hope to run more events like this very soon!