5 minute read
INSPIRATION
Creating a BUZZ
Travelling by train this summer? Make a beeline for Buzzing Stations to discover one of the Peak District’s buzziest tiny residents.
Bilberry bumblebee (Bombus monticola).
The bilberry bumblebee is a local treasure, with a bright copperorange tail reaching halfway up its body and golden yellow rings encircling its wings. It is a priority species for conservation in the Peak District National Park, found in only a few locations in England.
Towns and villages on the High Peak and Hope Valley railway lines are home to this pretty bee, so if you’re travelling by train this summer you may come across a bilberry bumblebee feeding on the flowers in the station.
Working with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, who led online bee ID training sessions, local volunteers have made bee-friendly planters at the stations and produced ‘spotter’s guide’ posters.
The Buzzing Stations project is highlighting how lucky we are to have the bilberry bumblebee on our doorstep and is encouraging people to look after all bumblebees. Set up by station group volunteers in the High Peak and Hope Valley Community Rail Partnership, initiated by Friends of Glossop and Buxton stations, the project takes on board the Friends groups at Edale, Hope, Bamford, Hathersage and Grindleford stations.
Bumblebee Express planter at Buxton station, made by volunteers.
Bee-friend a bilberry bumblebee
To see bilberry bumblebees, a short walk from most of the stations will take you onto the hills where they make their home. Follow the self-led bumblebee trails or look out for volunteer-led bumblebee safaris, where local guides will help you find and photograph these precious bumblebees (subject to COVID-19 guidance). Check out the station planters – you never know who may be sharing a platform with you! Tag us with your photos #BuzzingPeak on social media. You can find out more at www.bumblebeeconservation.org and
www.peakdistrictbytrain.org
Awake little queen is a beautiful new song about the bilberry bumblebee composed by award winning singer-songwriter, Bella Hardy. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust, with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, commissioned Bella to write and perform the song to help raise awareness.
You can download the full track, music video and lyrics from www.youtube.
com/watch?v=Sqoncl9cEds
Folk composer Bella Hardy’s new song celebrates the bilberry bumblebee.
Did you know?
• Bumblebees are vital pollinators which help produce our food. • Changes in agriculture have had a drastic impact on bumblebees, leaving them often hungry and homeless. • Bumblebees feed only on flowers so they need lots of flowering plants to thrive. • You can help by growing bee-friendly flowers.
Look Wild and get closer to nature.
Look Wild and be an iNaturalist
You will need:
• Smart phone • iNaturalist app • Desire to find out about local species
Look Wild is a virtual challenge taking place in all 15 UK national parks, for all ages, and it needs you to join in to make it work. To take part, visit iNaturalist.org, download the app (from the AppStore or Google Play) and share your observations. You’ll get feedback from scientists, experts, and other naturalists.
It’s ideal for the budding naturalists in your family. The entries will help show what’s happening to birds, bugs, fungi, flowers and trees at local and national levels and could inform future nature conservation work.
Harriet Saltis, conservation volunteers ranger, says: “If you are new to recording wildlife then this citizen science project is a great way to learn how. You don’t need to know what you are looking at as the app and the community using it will help you identify species.
“You can upload photos from your garden, on your walk to school or in any UK national park. It’s fun for families and a good introduction to volunteering. Happy photographing and posting!” iNaturalist is a social networking service for all including the public, naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists. It maps and shares observations of biodiversity. Every entry helps. There are short videos on iNaturalist that explain how to join in.
Find out more at
www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/lookwild
PROTECTION FOR MOUNTAIN HARES
The National Park Authority has lent its support to a campaign by the Hare Preservation Trust to see mountain hares receive the same protection as afforded to the main UK population in Scotland.
The mountain hare is an iconic and highly emblematic species of the Peak District moorlands – the only population present in England.
The Authority believes that similar legislation to that implemented in Scotland would be equally appropriate to apply to the Peak District, for a species of national conservation importance.
Any such measures would see the mountain hare added to Schedule 5 of the Wildlife & Countryside Act (1981), with the presumption that they then may only be killed in exceptional circumstances and under licence.
A mountain hare in its winter coat. Poet Mark Gwynne Jones recording sounds for the audio artwork.
THE FINAL CHAPTER: Voices from the Peak
Poet and recording artist Mark Gwynne Jones has created a series of audio artworks to celebrate the 70th birthday of the Peak District National Park.
More than two years in the making for research, interviews and sound recordings, the poetic soundscape has been released online in three audio chapters. Mark worked on the project with local sound producer Paul Hopkinson.
Mark says: “The research took me on a voyage of discovery and in unexpected directions – even to the source of the River Derwent. It also put me in touch with voices from the past including a recording of a local hill farmer talking of the big winters of 1911/1912 for the chapter Snow!, and the recorded voice of a cotton-picker in the American Library of Congress archive for the mills’ story in the final chapter.”
Chapter 1 – Burning Drake tells the story of forces underground that have shaped landscape and people, and of how miners tracked and found lead through ancient methods, including a ‘Burning Drake’ or shooting star.’
Chapter 2 – Snow! is about the cold, white stuff, with true stories about the transformative effects snow has on the landscape, on wildlife, and on lives and livelihoods.
Chapter 3 – Kinder Scout takes listeners from the source of the River Derwent to the world’s first water powered cotton spinning mill, to the Kinder Trespass, the creation of the UK’s first National Park, and the now vital battle to heal the moorlands.
You can listen to all three chapters at
www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/voicesfromthe-
peak – headphones recommended!
The work has been supported by Arts Council England, Peak District National Park Authority and Derbyshire County Council.
To be kept informed about future performances, please email:
