News

Audience impressed by nocturnal diversity at Waunfawr Park

(08.07.2007)

The successful Green Park Festival at Waunfawr Park, Crosskeys last weekend concluded with an evening of talks and demonstrations on wild life and the night sky. This Caerphilly County Borough Parks event organised by Parks Services, Environment Coordinator Dave Beveridge was structured to show the public how diverse parts of the natural world, not normally seen during the day, can be. Over 100 people returned to Waunfawr Park for the night-time spectacle, which will hopefully become an annual event.

Rory Smith, an amateur astronomer (though there was little amateur about his presentation) started the ball rolling with a talk about the night sky and showed the solar system in the shape of local children.

Richard Dodd from the Valleys Bat Group, and Alison Jones, Caerphilly County Borough Council’s Ecologist, gave the audience a well informed talk and interesting facts about bats. Did you know - there are 17 bat species found in Britain and South Wales has 15 of them, the smallest being a Pipistrelle can consume over 3,000 biting insects every night. If it were not for the bats, a night spent outdoors would be a lot less comfortable. Right on cue and just as the talks finished the bats appeared in the form of Pipistrelles and Noctules, the smallest and largest. Richard and Alison had also brought some bat detectors along with them so the audience were able to listen to the bats as they flew around them.

Sadly the owls did not materialise, probably because of all of the noise and commotion during the day. But this did not stop the moths coming to the trap, which had been set up by experts from Monmouthshire Moths and Butterflies Group.  The evening finally drew to a close at 11pm after the fascinated audience had seen over 30 species of moths, including one called Old Lady,  an uncommon species not attracted to light, but to a mysterious sugary recipe created by the experts.