Blogs from the Natural History Museum
Inspiring a love of the natural world
In the latest BioBlitz which took place in the Museum’s Wildlife Garden in October, we had a look in the garden’s pond to discover what kind of animals leave there! This is the second part of the blog where we share the results with you.
Continue reading to find out more about the species found in the pond! Continue reading “Wildlife Garden Autumn BioBlitz – Pond Species Review Part 2”
In the latest BioBlitz which took place in the Museum’s Wildlife Garden, we had a look in the garden’s pond to discover what kind of animals live there! We were very excited to see many of you taking part in our pond dipping and we would like to share with you what we found.
Read on to discover what we found.
Continue reading “Wildlife Garden Autumn BioBlitz – Pond Species Review Part 1|Citizen science”
It’s BioBlitz,
The greatest hits,
Of nature amidst London’s bricks,
That’s BioBlitz…..
Yesterday and today, scientists and visitors are working together in the Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Garden to record as many different plants, animals and fungi as possible. If you’re visiting today, come and join us outside (near the Orange Zone) and get involved in guided walks and surveys, or grab a plastic pot and and identification guide and go bug hunting!
These wildlife recording challenges are called BioBlitzes and we’ve run lots of them all over the UK over the past few years. A couple of years ago, when I was working with my friend Maria from Greenspace Information for Greater London to run the Brompton Cemetery BioBlitz, she happened upon the Poetry Takeaway at the Roundhouse in Camden and had an amazing poet, Laurie Eaves, write a poem for her completely off the cuff, about BioBlitz. It’s an awesome poem so I thought I’d share it here…enjoy!
BioBlitz
It’s BioBlitz,
The greatest hits,
Of nature amidst London’s bricks,
That’s BioBlitz.
It’s botanists,
And naturalists,
Who capture ants and plants on lists,
Continue reading “When poetry and BioBlitz collide… | Citizen Science”
April 14 2018 is Citizen Science Day, the start of a week celebrating all the amazing ways that people around the world contribute to science.
Citizen scientists are people like you and me, everyone from school children, to families, to dedicated volunteers, to local nature groups. Some go out into the wild to find and record nature, but you can even do science by joining projects at home.
Continue reading “Today is a great day to explore nature! |Citizen Science”
Our latest blog by Alex Mills from the current cohort of trainees takes a look back a few weeks to the BioBlitz in Tring, Hertfordshire:
‘What is it? What’s on me?’
‘Wow. It’s huge, Mum!’
‘What’s huge?’
‘Ah, cool. Hold still…’
Unconventional collection methods can work wonders during a BioBlitz. In this instance a mother accompanying her children on a minibeast hunt found herself functioning as a perfect interception trap for Stenocorus meridianus, a rather imposing longhorn beetle. The beetle was duly potted and admired. Everyone (including the mother/beetle trap…eventually) was transfixed by this magnificent beetle. And that was the order of the day at the highly successful Tring BioBlitz a few weeks ago: enjoyment and biological records, with kids and adults of all ages being transported by the natural world around them.
Continue reading “Tring BioBlitz | Identification Trainers for the Future”
The next of our new trainees to introduce themselves is Katy Potts. Katy is a keen entomologist and has volunteered with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and most recently with our own Coleoptera department before joining the traineeship programme:
I have been an amateur entomologist for the past 3 years and I am passionate about all aspects of wildlife, but particularly things with six legs. I recently graduated from Plymouth University where I studied Conservation Biology, since I graduated I have been keen to gain more knowledge in the identification of UK wildlife with particular focus on conservation. I am very interested in all aspects of wildlife but I am fascinated with insects, I find their morphology, behaviour and evolution extremely interesting.
Over the last four years I have been involved with public engagement events with Opal and Buglife where we ran invertebrate surveys and BioBlitz projects to encourage the public to become interested in their local wildlife. I was also involved with a pollinator survey run by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology that involved me surveying for hoverflies and bumblebees on Dartmoor and then identifying specimens to species level. This survey ignited my passion for identification further and I engaged in entomological and recording communities to develop my understanding.
Continue reading “Introducing Katy Potts | Identification Trainers for the Future”