Interested in wildlife study groups?

Dave Mellor has sent this proposal to start online study sessions to look at wildlife groups and to go out into the field to record what we find. Open to anyone interested in learning more about identifying and recording wildlife:

Spring is on its way! and the opportunity to get active in the field again is near.
Having been stimulated by the wealth of varied wildlife study tutorial videos I have discovered on YouTube, together with being aware of a good interest amongst our members in being more active observers of local wildlife, I’m proposing a series of zoom meetings to bring together these online benefits with our field study opportunities. I’d like to hear from anyone who has started to explore this online world of learning!

Several of us have enjoyed the very useful botanical zoom/field meetings provided by Michael Philips and Peter Wiggins for the VC76 botanical group
and there’s no reason why this practise can’t be extended to cover some other wildlife. Craig Postlethwaite has made a good contribution with his Lichen outings.
I was also prompted by the latest talk we had about the Nectar Network project in Ayrshire; wouldn’t it be useful for us all to know a bit more about the insects that play their role in fertilising our wildflowers?

There are several groups of creatures and plants that we might try to study.
such as Butterflies, Moths, Dragonflies, Grasshoppers, Bumble Bees, some Beetle groups. I’m sure other people will have their own suggestions as well.
Yes, this is a very tall order and I don’t believe that we can jump in at the deep end, but if we have a few volunteers to lead on some of the topics then we’ll have a good start.

There is generally a good supply of information online through several national organisations for our use. Having spent quite a number of years being employed as a local naturalist, I can help with guidance to access this material.

To explore this further I’m proposing that we hold a bit of discussion at the end of our next PNHS meeting and if there’s interest we can hold a short series of zoom meetings to explore this in more detail. Eventually I hope we’ll have a team of people who will take on organising learning and studying activities for some of these groups. Then as we go outdoors, our field  outings can combine these interests.

I look forward to hearing from anyone interested, either by email or at a short discussion at the end of the next PNHS meeting on the 6 March.

Dave Mellor