Our next and (so far) final date for this project is 25th January 11:00-12:00 at the Orchard and 1:00 - 4:00 at the Art Rooms Kings Heath: Creating a Management Plan. We start at the Orchard, with a review of all its habitats (11-12). After a lunch break, we continue at the Art Rooms Kings Heath, 2 High St Kings Heath, where we will create a plan to improve and or maintain habitats that need our attention (1-4).
As ever, this is a drop-in event with no charge, and we’d love to see you for all or any part of the day! Come and contribute, sign up to volunteer further, and help create sustainable habitats that support community growing in Kings Heath and Moseley!
This has been a truly instructive project, discovering what wildlife we curate, both big and small. We shall be on the look out for funding that can support a second phase to this work.
THE BACK STORY
Habitats at Highbury is our 2019 community project, supported by People’s Postcode Trust, and open to all! Helping the wildlife to flourish in the Orchard will stabilise and sustain the Orchard crops too, making the whole environment healthy and resilient.
Over the year, we’ll bioblitz a range of wildlife on a number of Sundays, listed below. These sessions will take place at the Community Orchard and Four Seasons Garden Project. They are drop-in sessions, starting in the Community Orchard, Highbury Park. We think BioBlitz Sundays will be fun and work blended together, ideal for individuals or all the family! Places are free, but it helps to know who to expect, so please book by emailing Liz on [email protected]
You’ll notice that the dates and times are not regular. That’s because some of the creatures we’ll be studying are active at different times of day. For example, the first session will audit woodland birds, and starts at 7:30 AM! Breakfast for the brave-hearts will be served during the session.
BioBlitz Sundays (identifying and counting species)
17th February: Woodland Birds (with breakfast at 9:00 for the early risers). On the Bio Blitz Day, we spotted blackbird, buzzard, green woodpecker, blue tit, carrion crow, feral pigeon, great tit, long-tailed tit, magpie, and robin. On the Conservation Days that followed, we made several different nesting boxes, containers with nest-making materials and a variety of bird feeders. The children had plenty of fun spreading gooey peanut butter on rice cakes, as just one example! Some of the adults built a nesting box or hung it in a tree for the very first time - Liz
5th May: vegetation. We will run some more mixed planting days over the year, to produce a mixed hedgerow in he Orchard.
16th June: pondlife. Our pond is need of some fresh water plants and marginals. On 5th August, All Saints Youth Project helped remove some of the dominant plants (balsam, nettle, bramble, horsetail) to make room for other species. They will return to help plants these out in Sepetember! Thank you ASYP!
4th August: invertebrates. A family occasion for worm lovers, bug hunters and butterfly catchers (none were damaged by our investigations). We were pleased to see so many happy bugs in our Orchard, and more plants will help these species thrive even better.
20th August (Tuesday) 7:45 - 9:30 Bats and Moths
3th November 10:30 - 2:30 Lichen
Each BioBlitz date will be followed by a handful of conservation dates on Wednesdays and Thursdays, in conjunction with Woodland Play and Stick Around sessions. We hope you will join us on these too, to help create habitats that will improve each species’ life chances in the Orchard.