Dunstable Beavers

It has been so wonderful being back out in reserves with young people this month. After having to postpone a visit to Blow’s Downs with some Dunstable Beavers earlier this year it was great to welcome them back in October. Following current guidelines we met at Blow’s Downs and I gave a little introduction to bats, echolocation and how to use bat detectors. We then went for a short walk to see if we could find some bats. It was very exciting and there were several bats flying along the track looking for tasty treats. We got very excited to hear the detectors change as the bats got closer and it was very funny hearing the little ‘raspberry’ noises when the bats caught their supper!

If you would like to book a visit to a local reserve with one of our team please get in touch Toddington@wildlifebcn.org

Creatures of the Night

If you would like to find out more about bats and some of the other nocturnal creatures that can be found on our reserves, check out this short video of photos all taken at Totternhoe Nature Reserve -

Youth Rangers

Another highlight of this month has been getting the Youth Rangers together again. We last met in August for a socially distanced walk around Blow’s Downs with Esther. It was great to hear how well the young people had done in their exams and their plans for the new academic year.

This holiday we helped Rich with some scrub clearing at Totternhoe. The 3 Youth Rangers who were able to join us worked tirelessly all afternoon helping to create new habitat for the Duke of Burgundy Butterflies. 

We look forward to coming back in the summer to conduct a butterfly survey to see how the Totterhoe Dukes are doing. This work is all linked to an ongoing project being conducted by a team from Cambridge University into Butteflies and Climate change. You can find out more about the butterfly project here - https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/butterflies?fbclid=IwAR0DaSd5fIUwd9gYhmMQYyxBBKPPY_SKl6FeWKZ5OQwAnZKDcgi2F8iJFLY

Between us we also contributed over 30,000 steps for this past week’s #BigWildWalk

A huge thank you to our Youth Rangers for all of their hard work and we look forward to seeing them again in the Christmas holidays.

Our next Youth Ranger session will be at Blow's Downs at 1pm on Monday Dec 21st.  If you, or someone you know, is 12-18years old and would like to join Youth Rangers please get in touch Toddington@wildlifebcn.org or visit https://www.wildlifebcn.org/get-involved/wild-experiences-young-people/youth-rangers  for more information.