If you saw us out and about around the centre yesterday morning with clipboards and wondered what we were doing, we were counting pollinators in our wildflower garden!!! Pollinators are bugs that go from flower to flower spreading and collecting pollen.
The UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme is in place to track changes in pollinators across the country and have asked for help to do this in our own space or community garden. We love a challenge at The West End Centre and we have the wildflower garden abundant with wildlife so we were happy to get involved.
So what did it involve, just 10 minutes each watching a variety of flowers and keeping a tally of different bees, wasps, butterflies etc...We also recorded the weather conditions at the time. Yorkshire Man Dan gave the groups some brief instructions with pictures of the how to spot the different pollinators.
Shasta told us "I had no idea there were so many different bees and other wildlife around the flowers it's so interesting to just watch them. I did enjoy it found it relaxing, we also had fun and I have learnt something new, thank you"
Margaret said I grow flowers at home but I had no idea about the different bees and would not have know which is which until today. It was interesting watching them, thanks for getting me involved was a good mornings work!!
In total we monitored 8 different flowers and identified various bees, wasps, hoverflies, butterflies and other small insects. All our results have been sent to the UK Pollinating Schemes, and we hope this helps with tracking the pollinators.
Want to know more here is a link for the their website.
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