ALNWICK WILDLIFE GROUP.
How did the group start?
In March 2000 a group of 35 local people attended a meeting to discuss the foundation of an active Wildlife Group in the Alnwick area of Northumberland. There was strong support for the iniative and it was decided to form the Alnwick Wildlife Group (AWG).
Who is in AWG?
Many of the original 35 people still actively support AWG, but they have been joined by many more. Each year since 2000 we have had a membership of between 150 and 175. Most members are local residents but we do have members from far afield - as far even as Nova Scotia and New Zealand, as well as Newcastle! Influential larger groups such as the Natural History Society of Northumbria "Natural History Society of Northumbria" pay a membership fee each year and our newsletters contribute to their archive of journals. We also have close links with the Northumberland Wildlife Trust (NWT) Northumberland Wildlife Trust”.
How are we organized?
Roger Manning is our founder, leader and sponsor. As a deliberate policy we are not run by a committee and as long as we can we hope to continue in that way. Lots of members contribute in various ways to the success of the group and as long as we can rely on that support without the need for formal structures, then we shall do so. So wherever, in this website, the word WE is used it must be understood that it is a collective WE, covering all 170 members.
What do we do?
Our major aim is "to promote awareness of the countryside and its flora and fauna". We try to do this in several ways:
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We hold nine monthly indoor meetings from September to May. Each meeting has a speaker, usually supported by a slide show, although we have had several guests who have brought video presentations. The meetings are well attended, with our record so far being 100 at a talk about Red Squirrels.
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We produce what we think is an excellent monthly newsletter which is posted out to all members. (More about this below).
- We encourage all members - and non-members for that matter - to send in wildlife sightings and records which we share with all members via the newsletter.
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We have occasional field trips to give the opportunity to interested members and guests to visit familiar or new areas of our district, usually with the guidance of someone who has a good knowledge of the site visited.
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We encourage a friendly, social environment for all who attend meetings and field trips. Indoor meetings always end with free refreshments and many people stay to discuss the talk and to chat.
What is in the Newsletter?
The main part of each newsletter is the summary of the previous month's wildlife sightings sent in by members. Most members, to a greater or lesser extent, do submit regular or occasional information about what they have seen and heard in the countryside. You don't have to be any sort of expert to contribute interesting and useful information. We encourage people to report all sightings of interest - not just the rarities - and to include information on the whole range of living things, not just birds and plants. We hope that over a period of years the records of AWG members will provide valuable data on wildlife trends in our county that can be used by conservationists and wildlife enthusiasts.
Each issue has :
- an introductory section giving:
- a summary of the weather of the past month
- information about some of the main wildlife trends
- information about forthcoming meetings and field trips
- if there has been a field trip, an outline of the main points of interest.
- a 'Plant Corner' article with accompanying line drawings of chosen species.
- a 'Swarland Snapshots' article describing the wildlife in one member's local patch
- a write-up of the main points from the previous month's talk - which provides a useful reference when trying to recall some piece of interesting or useful information.
- the major summary of the month's sightings and observations by members.
We are keen whenever possible to encourage members to submit occasional or regular short articles for the newsletter in addition to their sightings reports.
AWG Projects
Not everyone wants to get involved in wildlife projects. But some members do enjoy such activities. We have done a grey partridge count at Ratcheugh for Northumberland Estates and at the invitation of Lord James Joicey we carried out an extensive year-long survey of the biodiversity at Ford Moss. For this latter project we produced a detailed report that we hope will be of value to the Ford and Etal Estate and to English Nature and the Northumberland Wildlife Trust when trying to measure the effectiveness of their management policies for Ford Moss.
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| Bog Myrtle - common at Ford Moss |