NATIONAL Insect Week is set to begin and education charity the Field Studies Council is making it easy for people to get outside and become nature spotters.
Online resources created by the charity, which operates the Millport marine research centre on the Isle of Cumbrae, will help families to identify and learn about a range of wildlife.
National Insect Week is an initiative run by the Royal Entomological Society (RES) beginning on Monday, June 19, with people of all ages encouraged to get involved and try out some nature-spotting activities.
Olivia Watts, one of the biodiversity specialists at Scottish charity the Field Studies Council, said: “We’re really excited to encourage and help as many people as possible this National Insect Week to get outdoors and learn more about the little creatures which live in their gardens and inhabit local parks and green spaces.
“We’re very fortunate in the UK to have such a rich and varied abundance of insects living on our doorstep and the more people that know about them, the more they will want to help protect them for future generations.
“We’ve put together an online package of easy-to-use resources including videos and infographics on how to start identifying insects, as well as a range of free downloadable guides on insect recording so that people can actively take part in this important awareness week and we hope lots of people will get involved.”
The Field Studies Council trains people to accurately identify and record different invertebrate species – it has just completed a five-year-long National Lottery Heritage Funded scheme offering training and biological recording during the Covid pandemic.
The project produced 64,000 additional biological records which were submitted to the national database, a system which stores information about wildlife sightings across the UK.
Watts said: “This project was a huge success and one which we want to continue to build on by sparking people’s interest in nature and wildlife this National Insect Week.
“Records that were submitted as part of the BioLinks project and any new ones submitted to these databases during National Insect Week can be used by researchers and wider organisations to influence conservation policy, site management plans and inform other studies so this work is hugely important.”
You can click HERE to access the resources.
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