Hi, this is Jo from the Wild Bunch.
Have you heard about Frome’s Community Wildlife Mapping Project? If not, now is the perfect time to get familiar with how to get involved. And if you’ve been taking part for a while but had a busy summer, now is a good time to get back into it before wildlife starts hibernating or migrating.
The project was set up in December 2021 by Frome Town Council and Somerset Environmental Record Centre, and since then, over 7,000 observations have been recorded by 136 observers. Over 1,300 species have been identified showing how diverse biodiversity is in our town. A project like this is not only fantastic for community engagement but also provides valuable baseline biodiversity data. It takes time to collect data and start seeing trends, but over the past year, while Frome Town Council has been updating its green spaces management plans, we’ve finally had enough data to help inform these plans and provide suitable recommendations to support wildlife in our green spaces.
Anyone can get involved, as you survey in your own time and every little helps. All you need to do is create a free iNaturalist account, search for and join the Frome Town project, and record wildlife in your garden or while you’re out and about. Take a picture of a plant or animal and simply upload it – it’s that simple. If you’re a novice and get it wrong, someone from the iNaturalist ecologist and hobbyist community will correct you. For an observation to be research grade, it just needs to be confirmed twice.
I’ve been leading on the project since the start and I occasionally organise community counting days within our green spaces, but we’re also very interested in what species people see in their private gardens, as those are an important part of the Frome ecosystem. Every observation matters and helps paint a picture of local biodiversity.
Our next gathering will be a practical session to help hedgehogs. Details are still being finalised, so keep checking our page on the Frome Town Council website for more information.
