Chislehurst Watch

Find out what you can do to help us record the health and beauty of Chislehurst’s natural world #ChisWatch

 

Many Members will be looking forward to BBC’s Springwatch 2017, which starts Monday, 29 May. Many will also have something planned for the DoSomethingGreat campaign. Whatever you are up to in Chislehurst, if you intend posting the proof on social media please add this hashtag #ChisWatch

The purpose of this special newsletter is not to plug one of the Beeb’s most popular shows; or even the volunteer action they promote alongside it. Rather, we want those of you who regularly take an interest in Chislehurst’s flora and fauna to help us build a picture – literally – of the health and wealth of our natural environment. Here are a few ideas for how you can do that:

  • First, that #ChisWatch hashtag. If you’re not into social media skip to the third bullet point. But if you are then chances are you occasionally post pics capturing the beauty of Chislehurst’s: 
    • trees, shrubs, fungi and flowers; or
    • our birds, bees, bats and butterflies; or
    • maybe you’re more taken by beetles, or small mammals, or even earthworms?
  • Whatever you like taking photographs of, please keep on doing so. And when you post them, use #ChisWatch to share them with other interested Chislehurstians. Don’t forget to say what the pic is of (we may not all know!) and where you saw it. (And yes, we know the hashtag only works for Twitter and Instagram, but anyone seeing it on FB will know where to look).
  • If you’re not into social media, but are keen on nature photography, please send anything you regard as important to us at admin@chislehurst-society.org.uk We are particularly interested in photos that capture lesser seen species – either because they are simply rare in and of themselves, or because they are only around for short periods of time each year. We’ll post a selection of pics each week on the Society’s social media sites, sharing them more widely via #ChisWatch of course.
  • If your interest in the natural world goes deeper than just capturing beauty on camera, we would like to hear from you. If you are a keen birdwatcher, flower lover or mushroom hunter, or maybe an apiarist, botanist, chiropterologist, coleopterist, lepidopterist or zoologist (etc.), we would be interested in working with you to pool knowledge about the health and variety of Chislehurst’s flora and fauna.

This brings us to the key reason for launching Chislehurst Watch. Sharing pics every month (i.e., unlike Springwatch, we’re in it for the long haul) will build a visual record of the Chislehurst year. A window onto what can be seen, when and where. But we’d like to go further. We would like to try and bring together knowledge of the true wealth of flora and fauna right across the town, how well it’s doing and – perhaps more importantly still – what we haven’t got: species no longer here but which we might be able to attract back.

So, if you can help in any way – from detailing what’s in your garden to more widespread searches across Chislehurst’s almost 1,000 acres of green space – we would love to hear from you.