[V]olunteers are needed to help undertake the important task of surveying bumblebee populations and recording their feeding habits across the Yorkshire Dales and Forest of Bowland.
Full training in bumblebee species identification and monitoring will be provided during training sessions which will take place on Tues 6 and Fri 9 June.
Using their new knowledge and skills, volunteers will be asked to complete ‘bee walks’ once a week for six weeks from early June to mid-July.
By regularly walking a defined transect through a specially selected wildflower hay meadow, it is hoped that data can be gathered to help build up a picture of bumblebees across the region.
This work forms part of the Meadow Links project, a community driven project led by Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust that aims to restore wildflower rich hay meadows along ecological networks – helping our pollinators and other wildlife move across the landscape.
To volunteer or find out more about this work in the Yorkshire Dales please contact Tanya St. Pierre on 015242 51002 or email Tanya.Stpierre@ydmt.org
To get involved in the Forest of Bowland AONB please contact Sarah Robinson on 01200 448000 or email Sarah.Robinson@lancashire.gov.uk
Meadow Links will be delivered in partnership with the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) ‘Parish Wildlife Project’, Buglife’s national ‘B-Lines’project and Natural England. It is supported by funding from D’Oyley Carte, Banister Charitable Trust and John Spedan Lewis Foundation.
