Discover the secret lives of wildlife with a Weald to Waves BioBox!

From bats to butterflies, hedgehogs to hirundines, spring is a wonderful time to watch for new life emerging or turning up in our gardens or community greenspaces. Recording different species is a great way to learn what shares our spaces with us and importantly provides invaluable data to understand changes over time.

Surveying and monitoring our local wildlife is an integral part of the Weald to Waves project. We will only know if our collective actions are supporting nature recovery if we regularly record what we see and share this information with others. To support this effort in Sussex we are delighted to have recently launched our BioBox Loan Scheme, helping our community group members to either begin their biological recording journey or to progress survey work in their local areas.

While we can discover and record so much about the natural world with just our own senses, tools and technology can open up whole new worlds that we cannot see. From handheld detectors enabling us to hear the high-pitched echolocation of bats, to remote cameras revealing the nocturnal world of mammals, we want to share the tools to delve into the secret lives of wildlife!

Our BioBoxes contain a range of ecological survey equipment perfect for citizen science activities across our Weald to Waves communities. Equipment will support monitoring of plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects and invertebrates and there are plenty of ways they can be used. By establishing both ad-hoc and long-term monitoring activities along the corridor, vital data can be collected by you and shared to Weald to Waves through iRecord. The BioBoxes also offer so many ways to engage the local community with nature recovery; from schools to churchyards, village greens to community orchards, running activities such as bioblitzes can be great fun in all our local greenspaces.

The first BioBoxes are currently being tested by our Community Champions along the Arun, Adur and Ouse river catchments and it’s great to hear how they are being put to use; from family events being planned in Steyning, to pond surveys in Kingston parish and workshops in Arundel schools, we are looking forward to rolling out the loan scheme further to our Weald to Waves members in the coming months.

If you have registered as a member with Weald to Waves and would be interested in borrowing the recording and monitoring equipment, particularly if you are a group or council wishing to engage with your community, get in touch with us info@wealdtowaves.co.uk and ask about the BioBoxes!