Help protect bees in 2021 by recording the species you observe close to home. Right across the North East, every record counts. Spread the word and join the North East Bee Hunt. If you are interested in recording for the North East Bee Hunt, please see details at address below.

https://www.nhsn.org.uk/north-east-bee-hunt/

The Pollinator Monitoring and Research Partnership (PMRP) is analysing existing insect records alongside new systematic survey data to measure how insect pollinator populations are changing across Britain. Two new surveys have been established to form a UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (PoMS).

Can you help?

FIT Count: The “Flower-Insect Timed Count” is a
simple survey, counting all the insects that visit a
patch of target flowers during ten minutes. Insects
are identified to broad groups (e.g. bumblebees,
hoverflies etc.). You can do a FIT Count almost
anywhere flowers grow:

www.ceh.ac.uk/pollinator-monitoring

Please use the following address for more details:

https://www.ceh.ac.uk/sites/default/files/PoMS%20A4%20poster%202020_new%20logos.pdf

We had a great year in 2019 and were looking forward to the events that we had planned for 2020. Unfortunately, we have had to cancel all walks and talks due to the covid-19 virus, but hope to be able to restart our programme early next year. Keep an eye on the calendar page of the website for new listings. We will send mailshots to advertise events around a month before each event.

We visited County Durham’s limestone landscape at Thrislington National Nature Reserve in June. Here are some photos showing the group and the flowers seen.

We went to see orchids and we did but the common rock-rose helianthemum nummularium was the abundant and spectacular star of the show!

The common rock-rose is the food plant of the caterpillars of the rare Durham Argus butterfly which we also saw!