Thomas Blumire
Sponsored Wildlife Watch
Fundraising for A Rocha International
Story
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As a family we have always had a keen interest in wildlife and looking after God's creation. Our faith in Gods love sustains us & gives us hope now and always. Never has it been more important than now to look after the environment. Especially through this difficult time of a global pandemic I have come to realise just how important spending time in the natural world is. We all have experienced many difficulties and due to my disability, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, I'm vulnerable and so have had to shield. I've not left the house for a year apart from briefly in August and recently receiving the first dose of vaccine. Our garden has been my solace and special space. Throughout the lockdowns & shielding over this last year it has been our love for wildlife & Gods creation & his sustaining love for us that has kept us all going.
It all started last year when my dad and I set ourselves a challenge to see just how many different species of wildlife we could see during the lockdown in the garden. It was like doing our own Springwatch! We finished 2020 on an amazing 384 species of wildlife and our aim this year is to reach 400! We really wanted it to count for something this time round so we decided to raise some money for a conservation charity called A Rocha. A Rocha are an international Christian charity that focus on wildlife conservation & sharing God's hope. They support many projects, so we have decided to split any money we raise between two special garden themed projects. Here's a summary of the two projects:
Tortoise Kitchen Gardens.
https://www.arocha.org.za/news/the-tortoise-project
South Africa is home to 14 terrestrial tortoise species, the highest diversity of any country in the world. However, a substantial number are held illegally and without the correct permits. So in October 2020, A Rocha South Africa and FreeMe KZN entered into a partnership to re-wild captive held tortoises with the goal of releasing them into protected areas. The new tortoise rehabilitation centre run by A Rocha South Africa, who are creating kitchen gardens to research the kind of plants that would be favourable to the tortoises. They are creating a plant nursery to propagate them and use them for landscaping the enclosures to provide a range of supplementary food plants for the tortoises. It would cost about £450 to set up the tortoise garden, then there would be monthly running costs of about £125 once the garden is fully developed.
Sack Gardening Uganda.
https://shop.arocha.org/product/sack-gardening-uganda
Sack gardens offer families a way to grow their own vegetables where space is limited or where flooding is frequent. Gardening not only provides a healthier diet, but also brings people closer to nature. £15 will provide one day of training, allowing 10 people to learn how to make and care for their sack gardens.
I hope you can join us this year as we strive to reach our target in our garden & reach £1000 to support these special projects. You could give a donation or sponsor us per species we see. We will keep the Blumire Wildlife Diaries website updated through the year with our tally & any interesting videos, photographs & a regular blog.
https://www.blumirewildlifediaries.co.uk
The current tally as I write this on 21th February 2021 is 73 species overall, which I think is pretty impressive in two months! We've seen 44 birds, 5 bees, wasps and ants, 5 moths, 5 other insects, 3 arachnids, 10 other invertebrates and 1 mammal i.e. fox. If you would like to see the full list head to our website. It will be interesting to see how many we get this year! Having the time to observe all the small and subtle changes as the weeks and months go by will be truly fascinating and I have found it very reassuring that nature is business as usual.
https://www.blumirewildlifediaries.co.uk
The current tally as I write this on 21th February 2021 is 73 species overall, which I think is pretty impressive in two months! We've seen 44 birds, 5 bees, wasps and ants, 5 moths, 5 other insects, 3 arachnids, 10 other invertebrates and 1 mammal i.e. fox. If you would like to see the full list head to our website. It will be interesting to see how many we get this year! Having the time to observe all the small and subtle changes as the weeks and months go by will be truly fascinating and I have found it very reassuring that nature is business as usual.