Do you have a wild streak? I hope so, as I want to challenge ALL GGG readers to go really wild and do at least one thing to benefit wildlife this week as part of the BBC, Wildlife Trust and BTCV Breathing Places ‘Wild Week’ (22nd to 28th October).
Breathing Places and ‘Wild Week’ aims to encourage everyone to get outdoors and get in touch with their ‘wild’ side. Whether it’s by participating in an organised Breathing Places event, building a bee hotel or even creating a ‘Breathing Place’ for people and wildlife in the local community. I think initiatives like ‘Breathing Place’s and ‘Wild Week’ are fantastic for enthusing people into the wonders of the natural world and to help them become hands on in protecting our green spaces and the wildlife that depends on them.
Like many countries, the UK is losing brown field sites and even green spaces due to property and commercial development. If we continue to develop at this scale then it could damage wildlife habitat and scupper plans for habitat creation.
You may be thinking “Well, what can I do?” I’m only one person I can not possibly help 
to save all those species or prevent the loss of green space”. But you can, and if all GGG readers did at least one thing during Wild Week then it’s a start, and if you continue to do at least one simple thing a week or a month then united we can make a difference, remember “Think Global, Act Local”.
And don’t worry you do not need to have any conservation skills or wildlife knowledge to make a difference, you could do some of the simple following actions.
- Feed the birds
- Plant a window box
- Create a compost café
- Go Peat Free
- Volunteer for wildlife
- Adopt a species
There are lots of other simple but effective actions that you can take to go wild and help protect wildlife, if you are struggling for ideas then why not do a search on the internet or borrow a wildlife book from your local library. I personally will be going wild this week and intend to do the following things.
1) Sow native flowers around my pond
2) Put up another bird box
3) Go for a nature walk and do some species surveying
How about you? What wild things will you do this week?
October 23rd, 2007 at 7:15 am
you have so many great initiatives in the UK to support the wildlife - I have been reading extensively this morning from the danish wildlife foundation and have some very good ideas on how to turn Denmark into a wilderness =)
October 23rd, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Observing around the tiny green space around the house can be rewarding for a wildlife lover. Here is something which fascinated me for over two weeks.
Can you make out the pupa on the curry leaves branch? It is shaped and coloured like a curry leaf.
The second photo is a close up of the pupa.
The third one is the empty pupa. Though I kept observing the branch everyday for more than 10 days, the butterfly flew away early morning one day leaving the empty cocoon for me to document. I could not verify what the butterfly (the pupa could be that of a moth too) waslike, when it spread its wings and flew away.
I am also including the pic of a commonly seen butterfly which sits on the curry leaves tree. May be this is the butterfly whose metamorphosis I witnessed!
See the pics at
http://indianwildlifeclub.blogspot.com/
October 24th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Susan,
Thank you for sharing your wildlife observations with us. I have read some posts on your blog and it’s very interesting, I will make time this weekend to read your other posts - including the article ‘Nature Heals’ post which looks like a great read.