Marvellous Moths and Brilliant Bats 2019

July 21019

Many moth species were trapped and identified at our event. There were a few that can only be identified to family group.  Two species - Common and Lesser Rustic cannot be reliably separated in the field and are known as one 'aggregate' species.

Of the 43 species included, 20 were new to the site and 13 were new to me, so it was very worthwhile from a records perspective.

One species, The Mocha, is uncommon in our area. When Moths of Glamorgan was published in 2014, there were only 7 accepted records, although it is increasing since then and there are now at least 22 records in the 10k square which includes Fairwater.

As well as Moths, we saw 2 species of Bat (Common and Soprano Pipistrelle). We also logged Dryad's Saddle fungus (another great name),  2 species of caddis flies and a few other invertebrates including a beetle we hadn't recorded there before. I also found a new bug for the site after people had left in the morning.

All the above records will reach SEWBReCord during January (if not before) when I do my annual uploading of data. The data is then accessible to other organisations and individuals.

Thanks to Rob and Linda Nottage for giving up their time and running the moth trap, Alex Pollard for running the bat section (Alex had quite a way to travel to come to us), and County Moth Recorder David Slade for making the extra trap available and helping us confirm a few tricky species. 

And of course to Ian, Father Colin, Suzie and the volunteers who helped at breakfast time.

I had fun and I hope everyone else did. Let's do it again!

Paul Seligman

Eco Church Silver Award

27th April 2019

As part of our ongoing initiative to make the hall, church and gardens as eco friendly as possible we are pleased to announce that we have been awarded a Silver Eco Church Award.
The award was presented to some of our volunteers at our recent open day.
Next stop Gold!!!

Recycling Initiative

2019

The hall and gardens are both determined to be as eco friendly as possible and so earlier this year we set up a crisp packet recycling scheme.  This is going really well with crisp packets being recycled across the local community and so now we have now introduced battery recycling.
The collection boxes are both situated in the entrance to the hall and are accessible whenever the hall is open

Crisp Packet Recycling

May 15th 2019

The crisp packet recycling is going really well here at the hall.   In fact it's going so well that we had a huge number of boxes to send to the recyclers!  
If you want to join in then just drop any empty crisp packets in the collection box in the hall during normal opening hours.

Lord Mayor's Visit

March 28th 2018

We were very pleased to welcome the Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Cllr Bob Derbyshire and Mrs Derbyshire to the opening of our new greenhouse here at the hall and gardens.  The Mayor and Lady Mayoress also toured the gardens and presented awards to some of our volunteers.