Wildlife of Month Article
- June
Dear Risby Residents,
We hope you enjoyed receiving your wildflower seeds in March. Hopefully you are beginning to see the different types of leaves, these important plants are growing and maybe a few flowerheads. Here is a list of the seeds we sent you:
Agrimony, Birdsfoot Trefoil, Black Knapweed, Corncockle, Corn Feverfew, Cowslip, Field Poppy, Foxglove, Hedge Bedstraw, Lady’s Bedstraw, Salad Burnet, Meadow Buttercup, Musk Mallow, Oxeye Daisy, Ragged Robin, St Johns Wort, Red Campion, Ribwort Plantain, Selfheal, Wild Carrot, Wild Parsnip, White Campion, Wood Avens and Yarrow.
Some may flower this year, some may just show leaves but will flower next year and some may not grow at all! We just need to wait and see!
In the meantime, another simple thing you can do to benefit nature is practice “Say No Mow”. This is an initiative started by PlantLife, a conservation charity dedicated to wildflowers and other flora. They suggest that we do not mow an area in our own gardens and just let the flowers grow to benefit our pollinators. It is amazing what will grow as soon as we leave the lawn alone. So why not decide on a piece of your garden that you are not going to mow this year and let it grow! It can be as big or as small as you want, even 1m2 will make a difference.
Another great thing to do for wildlife this June is take part in the “30 Days Wild” activities by The Wildlife Trust: This is what their website says about it:
This June, join thousands of people taking part in our annual nature challenge, 30 Days Wild! We want you to do one wild thing a day throughout the whole month: for your health, wellbeing and for the planet. That’s 30 simple, fun and exciting Random Acts of Wildness.
You’ll get a free, downloadable pack of goodies to help you plan your wild month, plus lots of ideas to inspire you to stay wild all throughout June (and beyond!). For extra ‘bonus’ items, keep an eye on your emails for additional, fun activities, from instructions for baking hedgehog cupcakes to a beginner’s guide to wildlife photography.
To sign up all you need to do is visit their website: www.wildlifetrusts.org
Obviously the Risby Wildlife Working Group are not meeting up at the moment due to the Covid-19 Crisis, so we do not have any future activity dates planned at the moment. So even though we can’t meet up and get together to support wildlife, we can take action in our own gardens and do something positive for our environment. If you would like to know more about our ‘Wildlife Friendly Village’ of Risby you can find us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook or if you would like to join our Risby Wildlife Working Group, please contact us.
Take Care and Keep Safe
Risby – A Wildlife Friendly Village
References: https://www.plantlife.org.uk/everyflowercounts/