Wild About Bath Newsletter 5

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Newsletter Number 5 - May 2022

- Early Purple Orchids - City Nature Challenge - Upcoming Events -

What's Been Happening?

Early Purple Orchids

Early Purple Orchid - image credit Sue Monk

On 30th April we held an Early Purple Orchid walk, where James Bradby led us through Conwell Woods to find the early purple orchid. We were lucky enough to have spotted these beautiful flowers, as well as many other spring flowers such as bluebells, and the interesting yet strange, almost orchid-like, toothwort. Sue Monk wrote a lovely piece for the website with some more pictures and a more detailed description of this event. Have you seen any orchids yet this year? Out now are the early purple orchid and the similar-looking green winged orchid. You can tell the difference between the two by looking at the leaves and flowers: The leaves of the green-winged are not spotted, unlike the early purple, and the sepals of the green-winged have green veins.

City Nature Challenge 2022

City Nature Challenge took place between 29th April and 2nd May this year, and what a weekend it was! Although the final results aren't out until later today, across the Bristol and Bath region an impressive 7970 observations were recorded on iNaturalist, 1290 different species, by 403 people! In the Wild About Bath catchment this included the beautiful, though frustrating for keen gardeners, lily beetle (pictured below). This bright red beetle can often be confused with similar looking cardinal beetles though, so have a look at the images below so you can tell the difference as cardinal beetles are a gardener's friend rather than foe.

By 1st May the Bristol and Bath area were 1st in the for number of species and 2nd in the UK for number of observations. This of course this may have changed in the days since, so keep an eye out for the full results which should be released later today!

Upcoming Events

You are now able to book for events using Eventbrite if you follow the links. The outdoor walks have small numbers so it may be good to book early, but let us know if you are not able to come so your place could be made available to someone else.

Springfield Quarry Bat Walk

Friday 13th May 7pm
As part of the Springfield Quarry Big Bioblitz we will be taking a walk around the quarry in the late evening to see what bats may use this area to forrage for food or roost. More details, including how to register, can be found on our website.

Springfield Quarry Big Bioblitz

Saturday 14th May 9am
Join us for a big biolitz at Springfield Quarry! This hidden oasis, once a busy working quarry is now a haven for all sorts of wildlife: bats, birds, plants, bugs and much more! Join us to find out exactly what we can find here! More details, including how to register, can be found on our website.

Wild About Bath Photographic Competition

Deadline: 7th October
Keep snapping photos to enter into our photo competition! Further details can be found over on our website

Note for the Diary:

4th June
Big Tea Party for the Queen's Jubilee, Fir's Field. Wild About Bath will be there with some fun activities for the children and we'd love to stop and have a natter about all things nature with you, so do pop along! Further information will be coming soon.

More events will be posted on the website as the dates are finalised.

We hope you have all been enjoying this beautiful weather. We'd love to hear from you; perhaps you've spotted something beautiful and would like to share, maybe you have some event suggestions, or even would like to write a small piece for the next newsletter! If you're on Facebook don't forget you can join our group, or you can drop us a message using the contact button below. Until next time!

- The Wild About Bath team