By the time you read this, we should be well and truly into Spring, and just like the flower buds, we are raising our faces to the sun and blossoming with ideas to bring nature back to our town.
We are trying to get as much support as possible for “No Mow May”, an initiative by Plantlife. Since 1930’s we have lost 97% of our flower rich meadows. Leaving your lawn to grow (even just for the month), will allow wildflowers to appear, which can increase the amount of nectar and pollen for bees, hoverflies and butterflies. Could you help us spread the word, by stocking or giving out our new “No Mow May” leaflets, or putting one up on a noticeboard near you?
We would love to hear more success stories about your meadow projects. Check out the “On The Verge” blog here to learn how Daniela and Kevin turned their front lawn into a meadow. Not only did it help wildlife and look fantastic but it brought neighbours together and encouraged them to join in this year!
We are still looking for more “Renaturing Champions” to regularly monitor biodiversity in local green spaces, particularly more people at the Salts, Edinburgh Road, and Chyngton Lane. Please get in touch to find out more. We hope our champions will enjoy helping us with formal plants surveys and other initiatives like pollinator counting with Buglife.
Some of our renaturing champions plan to work closely with the “Friends of” green spaces groups set up by Martello Rotary, such as Chalvington Fields and Foster Close.
Thanks to the Cares lottery fund, we now have funding to buy survey kits – this will include flower guides, hand lens and quadrats to carry out plant surveys, litter picking safety equipment, and more basic spotting guides for plants and beasts for Citizen scientists of all ages. We also have funding for event kit (table, banners, collecting boxes etc) so that we can get outside and do some roadshows to spread the word. Let us know if you would like us to attend your events, or visit your Seaford club.
We always need more volunteers, and would love to hear from people who would like to help with events and workshops, with writing and design for an exciting new newsletter, publicity especially social media experts, fundraising, finance and administration. We would also really welcome people with specialist knowledge they would like to share – for example butterflies, bees, fungi, bats etc!
Many thanks as always to Fran at Seaford Scene