Hey dudes!
Caught up to July now and as im sure many of you will be aware it was Love Parks week and Big Butterfly Count in that month! Phew! We were also carrying on with our Green Flag preparations here in Newtownabbey.
I staged a (tediously linked!) Olympic themed “Bug Run” in a local park, where it turned out to be a great success with the wee kids in the park. Ready Set Go! Each child got a turn with a butterfly net, bug net, bug beater tray or just generally shaking trees and rambling through the grass for bugs. There was a little competition for who could collect the most bugs! Preferably still alive! This event also tied in nice with our Biodiversity Recording Project, as did the moth night where we were able to note and record the species and pass on any reliable data to CEDAR (Centre for Environmental Data and Recording).
On the Saturday we celebrated Love Parks Week at one of our Biodiversity and Heritage Family Fun days at Mossley Mill. Getting down to more pond dipping and butterfly hunting!
The day after all the organising and rushing around and olympic hype, my wee nephew Michael was born! All healthy and bouncy 🙂
Fueling my interest in Moth Trapping i attended a course on Macro Moths to keep practicing my i.d. skills and a course on GPS Mapping to revise on my technical abilities.
Other training days included a Dolphin and Whale i.d. course where 
the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group took us through the theory and practice of how to best survey cetaceans and recording methods.
Heres us at Kilkeel Harbour porpoise spotting:
