The year of the Underwings

This year’s Moth Night is highlighting four types of Underwing moths.

Known for displaying exceptional colours, these large moths move their beautiful, cryptic wings to expose flashes of vivid reds and pink when disturbed. This makes them convenient to spot, fascinating to research, and fantastic to photograph!

Red Underwing (Catocala nupta) by Barry Dickerson (Moth Night)

Hotter summer temperatures have impacted many organisms but the Underwing moths are thriving in Britain and Ireland (www.theguardian.com). Previously restricted to southern and central England these species are being spotted further and further north. Extremely rare species such as the Dark Crimson, Light Crimson, and Rosy Underwings have been routinely spotted in southern England and the Channel Islands, and now some species are being spotted in Wales and Scotland!

Much of the available information on moth distribution changes is currently anecdotal (although from good sources) due to a lack of data. Moth Night aims to gather more data to provide a larger comprehensive data-driven picture of moth distribution. The data feeds into ongoing efforts to create more accurate records across the UK and Ireland.

Your help is needed though. We need more information to understand how the range of different moth species is being altered by changes in climate. By banding together, we can carry out the widespread monitoring and spotting that is so important to understand changes but is very difficult for individual scientists to carry out alone. The importance of citizen research in conservation projects is starting to be recognised and valued in making vital contributions to the scientific community. It also allows everyone to help conservation efforts, even when we are unable to devote ourselves to it full time. If you care about local biodiversity, want to learn how to carry out scientific research, like a little adventure, or just want to have a bit of fun, join in with Moth Night!

Elena

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Learn more about the organisations that contribute to moth monitoring and recording:

• Atropos, journal, migrant reports http://atropos.info/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=99&Itemid=115

• Butterfly conservation (charity), Richard Fox Associate director of recording and research, https://butterfly-conservation.org/news-and-blog/moth-night-2020; https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/red-underwing

• Moths-count, national database effort:

  • http://mothscount.org/text/27/National_Moth_Recording_Scheme.html

  • http://mothscount.org/text/24/moths_and_climate_change.html

  • http://mothscount.org/text.asp?PageId=41

  • http://mothscount.org/text/103/provisional_atlas_of_moths.html

• Biological records centre/UK centre for ecology and hydrology data

  • https://www.brc.ac.uk/atlases

  • https://eip.ceh.ac.uk/data

Moth Night!

Six-Spot Burnet

Here at Biodiversity and Environmental Education Society, we love taking every opportunity to help our valuable wildlife. This long weekend join us and thousands of your fellow moth-recording enthusiasts in Moth Night!

Moths are vital contributors to healthy ecosystems. Give our moths the love they deserve and join in this annual celebration organised by Atropos, Butterfly Conservation and UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. Your help is vital to improve our knowledge of British and Irish moths.

It's easy to take part! Simply learn how to attract moths to your garden or park and start recording what you see! This will be a fun and easy activity that everyone can join in.

If contributing to biodiversity research wasn’t enough to convince you, there are also some fabulous prizes on offer! Jump on Moth Night to find out more.

Happy Recording!

Elena

Progress Update

Anneloes Martinsen, Chair

An Update from the Chair

Hello all, apologies for the lack of news lately. We have been working very hard to put everything in place to get our nature guide training course up and running. Thank you very much to those of you who have already expressed an interest in joining the course, we are excited to have you with us! I would like to use this post to update you all on our current progress and developments here at Biodiversity and Environmental Education Society.

As I'm sure you will be aware, the world has changed significantly in the past few months and thrown up new challenges that we are all having to contend with. Covid-19 has forced us to look again at our plans for how we run the programme and consider alternative options/formats. Making sure everyone on our course remains safe and healthy is our number one priority here at Biodiversity and Environmental Education Society. That being said we remain committed to delivering a high quality nature guide training course which gets people outside and learning about our biodiversity and natural history.

As you will have seen on our course page, the planned format for the course consisted of a classroom based theory session and an outdoor based practical for most subjects in the programme. The outdoor practicals should be largely unaffected (taking into account the social distancing rules I'm sure we are all now becoming accustomed to). Providing a safe and secure method of delivering the indoor theory sessions presents more of a challenge. The venues in Bury St Edmunds and Norwich we have planned to use are now either no longer available for hire or are imposing a maximum capacity of 5 people to a room, which is not suitable for our requirements. As such we are currently looking at alternative options, including:

• finding other venues that are more appropriate to our needs

• moving some or all of the theory classes to an online platform

• restructuring the course to have some of the theory taught outdoors alongside the practical sessions

• a combination of the above

We have been contacted by a number of you regarding making payment for the course. Whilst we greatly appreciate that you are ready to commit to becoming nature guides, we feel it is in the best interest of everyone involved that we do not accept any course fees until we can provide a finalised format and schedule for the course.

We plan to spend the next few weeks analysing the available options in order to make a decision on the best way to proceed with the course programme and hope to be able to update you all with more fixed details soon. In the meantime we welcome any feedback or concerns you may have (you can contact us at info@beeanatureguide.org.uk) and we thank you for your patience whilst we navigate this challenging period.

Stay safe

Anneloes

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Board of trustees

In other news, there have been some changes on our board we would like to share with you. Jasmine has decided to step down from the board of trustees in order to focus on her studies ahead of going to university this year. We wish her all the best with her degree, she will remain involved with BEES in an advisory capacity so we can continue to rely on her enthusiasm and support for the project.

Joining us on the board are Lee Fletcher and our new treasurer Rob Colgan, learn a bit more about them here. We are grateful to have them aboard and have already set them to work helping to get the programme up and running.

We also have a new volunteer, Elena Sage who will be writing content for our blog and social media pages, keeping you updated on current biodiversity and conservation issues, both nationally and globally.

That's it from us for now, we will be in touch soon with further news and updates.

Best wishes and stay safe

The BEES team