WINTER LOCKDOWN
Winter Hedgehog Sign Challenge
Wilderhood Watch is excited to be launching its Winter Hedgehog Sign Challenge, with the hope that our signs will remind drivers to take care on the roads, and save our precious hedgehog population. We are also delighted to be supporting the St Albans 20’s Plenty Campaign.
Exclusively for our Winter Hedgehog Sign Challenge, we are giving away robust weather-proof hedgehog signs for residents to display in their front gardens. These are available free of charge to anyone who lives in St Albans, regardless of whether or not they live on a Wilderhood Watch street. We are supplying them with pre-drilled holes and cable ties, making them easy to attach onto poles, posts, fences or gates.
Last month researchers at Nottingham Trent University released data showing that up to 335,000 hedgehogs are dying on our roads each year. They were alarmed that the death rate seems to have tripled from an estimate of 100,000 per year in 2016.
In light of the fact that there are now only an estimated 1 million hedgehogs living in the UK (down from 30 million in the 1950’s), this is devastating news.
The researchers concluded that changing driver behaviour was integral to keeping hedgehogs safe on the roads. This is exactly what we’re going to try to do in St Albans, by challenging as many people as possible to put up hedgehog signs outside their houses this Winter.
Once residents have displayed their signs, we are asking them to send us a photo, so that we can add it to our Hedgehog Sign Photo Gallery. If you would like to join in with our challenge and order a hedgehog sign, please email nadia@wilderhoodwatch.org.
SPRING LOCKDOWN CHALLENGES
Due to the Corona virus lockdown, we were all spending more time in our gardens over Spring and Summer. Because of this, Wilderhood Watch ran two events which were originally planned for this year’s Sustfest. Both of them were activities which could be carried out in the safety of people’s homes, and they were very child-friendly!
- The Great St Albans Sunflower Challenge 2020 (check out our Sunflower photo gallery here) This was such a success, we are planning on holding it again in 2021.
- The Wilderhood Watch Photography Competition
The Great St Albans Sunflower Challenge 2020
This challenge was part of our Pollinator Highway Project. Along with support from Grow Community – Sopwell, we challenged St Albans residents to plant as many sunflowers as possible in their gardens during the lockdown.
Our final tally for the Great St Albans Sunflower Challenge 2020 was an amazing 1898 seeds planted! Despite lockdown, we managed to distribute over 1000 seed packets to residents by setting up several collection hubs around St Albans. Thank you to everyone who planted seeds – we can’t wait to see sunflowers popping up everywhere throughout the Summer!
Residents all over St Albans took advantage of the lovely sunny weather to plant their seeds. Get ready for a huge explosion of sunflowers across the district this Summer!
We sourced our seeds from Bee Happy Plants, a competitively priced and organic product.
The Wilderhood Watch Photography Competition 2020
Congratulations to our competition winners!
- Over 18 – Jill Priest, Hoglets
- Secondary School – Toby Davies (age 12), Leaf
- Junior School – Eliott Forel (age 10), 7-Spot Ladybird
- Infant School and below – Myles Lloyd (age 6), Wildflowers
Prizes were two small, hand knitted hedgehogs along with their very own hand built house!
