Wildlife to look out for this Year – Bees and Hedgehogs

This year both Risby Eco Church and Risby Wildlife Friendly Village have aims to improve habitat for two types of universally loved animals: Bees and Hedgehogs. Risby Eco Church’s aim is to facilitate a bee flight corridor in Risby, which would also benefit many other insect pollinators and birds in the parish and benefice; Risby Wildlife Friendly Village's aim is to enhance hedgehog habitats around the village with hedgehog houses, feeding stations and highways. Both these aims will be more easily achieved with up-to-date mapping techniques to help us accurately understand the wildlife habitats we have here for these animals.

Recognising the work already underway as part of the Wildlife Friendly Village and Eco Church initiatives, our village along with the village of Hundon, has been invited to be part of a joint Nature Recovery mapping project - a partnership between WildEast, Suffolk County Council and Natural England. At a local parish level, this mapping project will take positive steps towards the wider regional and national plans to recover nature, with a particular emphasis on enhancing wildlife-rich places, habitats and corridors and how these spaces can benefit not only wildlife but also our health and wellbeing by enabling us to enjoy and connect with nature where we live, work and play.

Over the next few months we will be holding ‘Community Connectivity for Nature Recovery’ Workshops at Risby Village Hall to find out from everyone their thoughts on this. We will also be running a Wildlife Habitat Survey to find out what is already going on in our gardens, allotments, school, community areas and the wider landscape. We can then look at where we as a community think nature recovery opportunities potentially exist.

So if you are interested or curious about how using up-to-date mapping techniques will help our village’s bees, hedgehogs and other wildlife, as well as us, please come along to one of our workshops, where there will be free tea, coffee, cake and a warm welcome for all who attend, dates and times below.

‘Community Connectivity for Nature Recovery’ Workshops at Risby Village Hall:

#1 Workshop: Why map our village?

Wed 25th Jan, 7.30pm to 9.30pm & Sat 28th Jan, 10am to 12pm

#2 Workshop: What is Nature Recovery?

Sat 18th Feb, 10am to 12pm

Any questions please email: wildlifefriendlyvillage@gmail.com