CONSERVATION group, Transition Town Wellington are hosting their annual ‘bioblitz’ to keep record of local growth.

The gathering, which will take place over Saturday, June 28 and Sunday, June 29, will be a chance for area residents to support the group in recording wildlife around Fox’s and Fox Cub fields.

Starting at 2pm, Saturday’s events will begin with a butterfly walk with Langford Heathfield volunteer ranger and Butterfly Conservation Trust recorder, Ian Loudon.

From 3pm, two of the leading botanical experts in Somerset, Liz Biron and Stephen Parker will be leading a plant recording mission.

At 3.45pm, Anne Halpin, a monitoring officer for Somerset Wildlife Trust, and ecologist Mark Biron will use sweeping nets, pooters and magnifying pots to collect and identify insects, then at 4.30pm there will be river dipping to identify fish and invertebrates in the local watercourse.

Director at Seasons Ecology, Hannah Maben will discuss traps and footprint tunnels at 5.15pm and later into the evening, at 9pm, there will be a bat and moth walk.

On Sunday, June 29, there will be a ‘dawn chorus walk’ at 5.30am, more traps and footprint tunnels at 7am, and a reptile search at 8.45am.

To finish off the weekend, Rob Grimmond from the Somerset Moth Group will identify, and release caught moths, before a breakfast picnic and bioblitz results until 11am.

A Transition Town Wellington spokesperson said: “We try and do a bioblitz yearly for all the areas we manage, to keep a count of the biodiversity onsite and to record any increases year on year.

“However these often depend on the enthusiasm and numbers of volunteers present on the day, rather than being a true reflection of the biodiversity present.

“So this year, with the help of local experts and ecologists, we have an event truely focussed on recording the life we see.”