In July and August, our partners in the Sid Valley Biodiversity Group (SVBG) encouraged local people to take part in the annual Big Butterfly Count, a significant citizen science project run by Butterfly Conservation every year for the last fifteen years. Volunteers find a sunny spot and count how many butterflies and day flying moths they see in a fifteen-minute period across a range of habitats including gardens, parks, fields and woods. The Sid Valley has an active citizen science population who carried out nearly 200 counts during the recording period.
Ed Dolphin from the SVBG has written a report on local findings giving comparisons with previous years and the national picture. He concluded that: “The Sid Valley is one of the best locations for butterfly populations and diversity because of its climate and habitat diversity but even this favoured area shows troubling signs of decline and this is a clear indicator of an overall problem facing our total biodiversity. There is already a lot of work going on to mitigate the effects of changing climate and habitat degradation. Hopefully, there are enough people doing many small things that will add up to a landscape scale reversal of the decline.”
Read the full report – https://sidvalleybiodiversity.org/the-big-butterfly-count-2024-in-the-sid-valley/
During the Sidmouth Science Festival, on Saturday 12 October, the Sid Valley Biodiversity Group are offering a day of biodiversity related activities. Read the details – https://www.sidmouthsciencefestival.org/events/biodiversity-day-2024
If you are interested in finding out more about citizen science and hearing from three people leading citizen science projects you may be interested in the discussion at 7pm on Wednesday 9 October at Kennaway House – https://www.sidmouthsciencefestival.org/events/summary-citizen-science-panel-discussions