I went to Jodrell Bank radioo telescope and visitor centre yesterday with university Sustainability Enthusiasts. Jodrell Bank is part of the University of Manchester (as is the museum). It was completely fascinating- with the famous white dish, really good science centre and fantastic arboretum. The tree collection, started by Sir Bernard Lovell, includes lots of rare and interesting trees. We even tasted some fruits of the ‘Blue Sausage Fruit Tree’- no kidding! The autumn colours were beautiful and we saw lots of birds, including a flock of about 10 Redpolls, some Siskins, lots of Redwings, some Bullfinches, and lots more besides. We didn’t see the Ravens or Peregrines, which live on the telescope.

Henry

I had a fantastic experience yesterday, meeting Nick Dixon, who is an ExtInked ambassador for the Western Capercaillie. This was all the more interesting for me as I did some surveying work on these birds in Scotland many years ago. Nick and I were photographed on a Victorian glass plate camera. If you’re intrigued by this, then come along to our After Hours event in the Museum on 26th November.

Henry

We need you

If you’re:

A diver

A weaver

If rats make you shiver

You collect things from the seas

Or you love honey from bees

We want you!

Enough poetry from me.  Seriously, we are looking for people who have very specific relationships with nature for a new project called Nature and Me linked to the Living Worlds Gallery at Manchester Museum.  This project will see participants talking on film about their personal passion (or passionate dislike) for nature.

We are already in touch with lots of people but some specialisms are harder to track down then others.  If you connect with one of the categories below and live in the Manchester area please get in touch with Andrea Winn (contact details here) who will forward me your details.

We cannot promise that you will be involved and you will be not be making a commitment by getting in touch (you can decide if it’s for you once you’ve spoken to us). Either way it would be nice to hear from you.

• A diver
• You’ve been involved in a natural disaster
• You are passionate about a specific thing in the natural world
• You have a passionate DISLIKE to something in the natural world
• You have a phobia of something in the natural world (but are ok to talk about it)
• You are an environmental journalist
• You know about the symbolism of animals in astronomy
• You know about heraldry
• You train (or used to train) race horses
• You’re a pigeon fancier or racer
• You’re a champion flower grower
• You’re a budding nature photographer
• You make nature films
• You’re a fisherman (or used to be)
• You’re a freegan
• You’re a fossil collector
• You go on eco-holidays
• You buy eco-friendly foods
• You sponsor an animal

We keep everything really friendly and it’s about getting individual stories and telling them your way.  We’ll help you to find the best way to do that.  We’re looking for people from all walks of life so if you’re not sure if this is for you why not just get in touch and we can talk it through with you?

Mixing up real fish with plastic fish.

Artist Naomi Kendrick and I have been inviting people with a specific or peculiar take on nature to share their interest or passion on film.  Each participant will take part in a creative workshop that we’ve designed to unpick what makes them tick.

In preparation for these workshops we explored the Living World Gallery and talked to Head of Collections Henry McGhie and Curator of Community Exhibitions Andrea Winn about sourcing objects from the collections that we wanted to include.  We’ll be mixing these up with a few of our own (like the plastic fish in this photo) and using them to get people thinking.

Naomi had tweeted some of the things on the list:

‘fox, blackbird, coffee bean, giant seed that looks like a bum, lava, dodo bones, fossilised egg, ape skull, tropical butterfly’

A tasty little shopping list!

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This autumn we’re well underway with Nature and Me – the Living World Gallery’s film project.  We’ve been delving into the lives of nature lovers and people with specific and peculiar connections with the natural world to find out what gets them all fired up.  We’re working side by side with this emerging community to make a series of short films to create a living record of how humans and nature are connected.

With the help of our cheery student partners on the Level 3 Extended Diploma in Media Production course at Stockport College, artist Naomi Kendrick and me (Kate Day) are in post to creatively shape the project.  So we’ll be keeping you up to date to tell you how we’re going about the task of making these films, who’s getting involved and where you can find the films as they’re competed.
Posted by Kate Day.

Hello- if you have some free time today, come along to Harpurhey Reservoirs and Ponds. You can help us survey wildlife, find out what there is, or find out more about local organisations involved in nature conservation. I hope to see some of you there.

Henry

http://www.buglife.org.uk/AboutBuglife/events/HarpurheyBioBlitz2011

Hello-
Now that we have opened ‘Living Worlds’, we are thinking about our next natural history gallery redisplay. This will be of the Animal Life 2 gallery, currently occupied by stuffed birds and a display of invertebrates. We would like to know what you would like to see- and what you wouldn’t- and how you would like to use the gallery. There is a quick online survey at http://bit.ly/birdgallerysurvey
Henry

Hello again- We have a talk to staff on Thursday from students on the BA photography course at Stockport College. We have been working in partnership with them as a result of a fantastic collaboration with Eleanor Mulhearn, who was on a HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) fellowship. So far our partnership has had several outputs:

-Eleanor has been investigating a group of lantern slides of extinct and endangered animals.

-Richard Aldred did a photodocumentary of the transformation of our old Animal 1 gallery into Living Worlds

-and each student from the final year of the course worked on their own response to the themes of Living Worlds. Students were given a very broad brief- it was their final year project after all! There was a fantastic exhibition at the Chinese Arts Centre here in Manchester a couple of weeks back that I was very proud to attend.

Henry

Hello- I’ve been away for the last couple of weeks, teaching 30 fantastic undergraduates from the Faculty of Life Sciences here at The University of Manchester. We stayed at a gite in the south of France, two hours drive west of Nice. Students worked on projects that they came up with themselves. The range was fantastic- effects of background colour of flowers on bee behaviour, cricket population size and habitat preferences in meadows, effects of light and shade on biodiversity in streams, tadpole grouping behaviour at different temperatures, ant behaviour in response to different colours- and that was just my group! We worked hard to minimise the effects of projects on the natural environment. The area is very beautiful, with pine forests on steep limestone valley sides. The fields and woods are alive with butterflies, birds including Ravens, Red-backed Shrikes, Crested Tits and many others. The most interesting thing to me is the ‘unusual’ combinations of species- on the top of mountains you find Whitethroats and Lesser Whitethroats (warblers that like scrubby areas) and Skylarks- which are found in fields here. In the forests are Woodlarks- confined to southern Britain- alongside Crested Tits- which are only found in Scottish pinewoods in Britain.

Hello- there are some fantastic webcams on the BBC Nature site- as part of Springwatch. You can go nature-spotting from your desk! Chicks grow incredibly fast so you should be able to see them grow day by day.

Henry

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/uk/webcams/