GBGW 2024 – Nature Discovery Day

Nature Discovery Day
Mill Meadows – 10-2pm
Saturday 8th June

Henley’s Great Big Green Week kicks off on Saturday 8th June with a FREE day of activities for anyone and everyone to enjoy. Join us in exploring Nature on our doorstep at Mill Meadows at our Nature Discovery Day!

We have drop-in activities programmed throughout the day for all ages – come and take part in the Guided Wildflower Walk, Tree Trail, Butterfly & Moth Safaris, Bug Hunt, Pond Dipping and more. Keen gardeners can collect free native wildflower seeds or plants at Greener Henley’s stall and learn about our Nature Squared campaign. You can chat with local conservation groups about how we can protect and restore nature locally – why not do some pond dipping with Chiltern Chalk Streams, or learn why Dark Skies are so important for wildlife with CPRE.

Bat, toad, moth & butterfly, bird, bug, tree & wildflower experts will also be on hand to reveal the nature living all around us – from beetles and bats to buttercups. Budding photographers can take part in a wildlife photography session, and if you want to be amongst the first few members of Henley Bat Group, come on by!

Across the meadow, visitors can pop into the River & Rowing Museum to see Pollution, an exhibition of local students’ work, in response to Greener Henley’s Schools Environmental Science Challenge, alongside work from the wonderful waterside arts and ecology project, The Beautiful Blue. Both exhibitions run from 23 May to 17 June.

The stalls so far confirmed for Nature Discovery Day include:

• Greener Henley – that’s us! Your local climate and nature action group will have displays of our Wildlife Working Group, Swifts, sign ups for citizen science surveys and lots of info on how to help nature 
• Our Nature Squared Stall will have FREE native plants for pollinators when you sign up to plant 1m2 of native wildflowers!
• Henley Toad Patrol, who help migrating toads, frogs and Smooth Newts across the busy A4155 Henley Marlow road, safely to their spawning ground on the other side every year will be there to chat about amphibians
• Thames21, who work with communities to improve rivers and canals for people and wildlife, will be on hand to chat about the health of our river.
• Upper Thames Butterfly Conservation Group, who aim to protect our local butterflies, moths and their habitats, will lead the butterfly sweeps
• Berkshire and South Bucks Bat Group work to conserve our local bats and their habitats and are keen to help us get a Bat Group going in Henley.
• CPRE, the countryside charity, will be letting people know about their Dark Skies campaign
• The Wildlife Trusts will be chatting about the river as habitat and doing a children’s picture puzzle
• Chalk stream volunteers work to conserve, enhance and raise awareness of this globally important habitat and will lead the pond dipping sessions
• UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (PoMS) will be demonstrating how to record your nature discoveries, plus how you can help pollinators by getting involved in citizen science
• Oxfordshire Badger Group will be there with information on celebrating and protecting our local badgers
• Ask the Experts, where local naturalists will be on hand to help identify just about everything!
  Come and meet: naturalists Richard & Jackie Fortey; moth expert Andrew Padmore; naturalist & wildlife photographer Linda Seward; wildflower expert Sally Rankin; ornithologist Alan Parfitt; tree expert Andrew Hawkins and spider expert Paul Selden
• Henley Town Council will be letting us know about their plans to boost local biodiversity

Activities planned for Nature Discovery Day from 10am – 2pm include:

Guided Wildflower walks by local wildflower expert Sally Rankin
Bird spotting – Alan Parfitt,  + R & R have a Bird Bingo sheet they will be giving out.
Wildlife ID/photography demonstration by Linda Seward, naturalist, wildlife photographer.
Self-led scavenger hunt – Walk the Wildlife trail around Meadows
Butterfly safaris
Moth identification from previous night’s moth trap
Pond dipping
Tree trail 

Possibly some related art workshop inside the R & R with The Beautiful Blue.

Our Nature Discovery Day is just the start of a week-long series of events for Henley’s Great Big Green Week! There is something for everyone to enjoy – talks, film, art, exhibitions, poetry and workshops that explore how, together, we can tackle climate change and restore nature and wildlife in the local area – and beyond! Find out more about what the rest of Henley’s Great Big Green Week has to offer.

If you can help with this event, or any of the events during Henley’s Great Big Green week, please get in touch.