National Insect Week

Hi all

Today we ran a special national insect week event. Did you know that many of the animals that live in ponds are insects or insect larva.

I had some help from Abby the Aquarius. Abby comes from South Africa and she is visiting Ed the Bear.  Ed visited Abby in South Africa where she showed him around the coast, visited the Two Oceans Aquarium where she comes from and also a sea bird sanctuary where they care for  injured and oiled birds including the penguins that live on local beaches.

I showed Abby my favourite view on the Lewes Railway Land Nature Reserve. While we sat there a family of ducks swam by

Next we went to the Leighside Pond

We set out all the gear to catch some pond insects to show the visitors

We also saw a beautiful demoiselle damselfly

When the visitors arrived we showed them the pond animals using a microscope and a projector both attached to a laptop.

The live pond animals were projected onto a screen for everyone to see

 

I also had a photo quiz for children to match the adult insects with their larva

It was a great day

Bella

Earth Hour

Hi all

Earth Hour has come around again to raise awareness of our planet. If you don’t know Earth Hour the aim is to encourage as many people as possible each year to not use electric lights (and other electrical devices) between 8.30 and 9.30pm which is where it all started. This is a global event and there are also many fund raising projects linked to Earth Hour to raise money for various causes. 

http://www.earthhour.org/join-the-hour

 Me and Bella celebrating Earth Hour 2014

‘Earth Hour is a worldwide grassroots movement uniting people to protect the planet, and is organised by WWF. Engaging a massive mainstream community on a broad range of environmental issues, Earth Hour was famously started as a lights-off event in Sydney, Australia in 2007. Since then it has grown to engage more than 7000 cities and towns worldwide, and the one-hour event continues to remain the key driver of the now larger movement’.

Bella show cases her World of Water at the Lewes Railway Land Nature Reserve

Hi all

Today is the Launch of my ‘Project Bella Bear World of Water’. This is part of an exciting Water Festival run by the Lewes Railway Land Trust here at the Lewes Railway Land Nature Reserve.

There are lots of organization with stands and demonstrations about water, a guided walk and also a puppet show and much more to see and do.

Our display stand was a mixture of my World of Water Project based at the Railway Land Nature Reserve and my brother Ed the Bear's One World One Ocean Display



We also ran an activiy about pond life and we borrowed a few pond animals from one of the ponds here on the nature reserve.

I helped collect some pond animals from my raft. The raft is made up almost completely of recycled items such as plastic bottles and wood.

We then showed the animals using a video camera which was connected to a projector. 

We zoomed in on the animals and then  people could see them swimming around on the screen

Later we took people around the reserve on a water themed walk.

We started outside the Linklater Pavilion where the flood level of 2000 was shown on the wall.

We then looked at the honey bees entering and leaving the hive. Bees collect freshwater to help keep the hive cool and nurse bees need water to help make the jelly they feed to the larvae. They also use water to help stop honey from crystallizing.

We visited the woodland and considered how much water a tree need a day and then consider the woodland.

We looked at the Winterbourne Stream - my favourite view

We visited the pond and then walked through teh heart of reeds where we saw coots. This is a young one.

There was a loud plop as a marsh frog jumped into the water.

It was great to show people how amazing the nature reserve is and what fascinating wildlife. Also to show how important freshwater is to so many different animals and plants

Ice in space

Hi all

I discovered today that their is ice in space. Infact a large chunk of ice is whizzing past our planet. Its called a comet.

It appears that some scientists think that the water on earth might have originally come from collisions with comets, way before humans or bears lived on earth. I will have to find out more about this.

The comet is just about visible with a telescope. I had a look but it was too cloudy to see anything.

Frog spawn uncovered

Hi all

You may remember that I covered up the frog spawn in my pond to protect it against the ice and snow.

Well the snow and ice has melted and I uncovered the frog spawn today and it looks like it has not been damaged by the cold weather.

Snow flakes reflect light

Hi, it may seem strange but snow is actually very bright and its a good idea to wear sunglasses when its sunny and snowy. Thats because the sunlight is reflected by all the snow flake crystals.

In places like Antartica, where Ed the Bear visited recently, you can suffer badly from the bright sun reflecting of the snow. They call it snow blindness but it doesn't make you permenantly blind.

I took this picture near my house at night (without a flash) and you can see all teh way up the trackbecause the snow reflects the moon light and the street lights.

This is a picture I took of foxes a few weeks ago - its all black and no sighn of the foxes. The snow makes a real difference to seeing at night.

Snow covered frog spawn

It snowed very heavily during the night and the pond is frozen and the sheet I covered the frog spawn with is covered with snow.

I hope the frog spawn is safe.

The frogs will be safe at the bottom of the pond. Althought frogs have lungs, they can also breathe through their skin