Guernsey’s second BioBlitz of 2021 was at Lihou headland on Wednesday 15th September

Broadcaster and wildlife expert Nick Baker attended, along with three of the island’s schools – Vale Primary School, La Houguette School and Castel.

The event was being hosted by the Biodiversity Partnership, Guernsey Biological Records Centre, La Société Guernesiaise and the Pollinator Project.

A BioBlitz is an event which strives to record as many species as possible from a site in a single day. It aids better understanding of Guernsey nature and also provides an opportunity for schools to get involved in ecology practices – searching for and recording our local wildlife.

• Throughout the day expert recorders worked with local school children to look for wildlife from fauna: (in this case birds, bees, voles, flies, butterflies, moths and bats) to flora: flowers, seaweeds and lichens.
• There was a series of guided walks for four school groups who found out what exciting species could be seen on the day, and added to the species count.

Barry Wells, co-founder of the Pollinator Project and local bee recorder commented: ‘It’s great that the Biodiversity Partnership supported the Pollinator Project to bring Nick Baker to Guernsey. He’s a huge wildlife enthusiast and a renowned TV naturalist – so it was an amazing coup to have him here to join school groups and record local wildlife at Lihou headland. He also learned about specific Guernsey species and saw their habitats. We have some European species here that are not seen in the UK and some larger species (like the Guernsey Vole) too so we think it’ll be fascinating to get his perspective on our island’s wildlife.’

Becky Ogier, Education Officer at La Société Guernesiaise, commented: “The autumn BioBlitz is a great opportunity for young people to learn about many aspects of Guernsey’s wildlife from our local experts in botany, ornithology and entomology and other ecology fields. Together we created a picture of a ‘moment in time’ in the island’s natural history. It’s not just a fun day out seeing creatures, it’s a brilliant way for children to make a meaningful contribution to collecting data that informs our future conservation efforts.”

Julia Henney, Biodiversity Officer commented: “It was brilliant to be able to run a second BioBlitz in Guernsey this year and saw lots of different wildlife species. We went rockpooling to track shoreline and marine species, which was a great opportunity for people to learn more about our natural environment and give a benchmark  of one place’s coastal plants and animals to help us better understand how wildlife is doing.”

The BioBlitz is funded by the States of Guernsey’s Strategy for Nature fund and is facilitated by local environmental non-profit groups.