Hey everyone, this is Dara! Welcome to Day 13 of 30 Days Wild! I have to say, today has been a crazy day at school so I struggled to go for a walk or anything spectacular but I could still do something Wild in my garden and  indoors – that was record the wildflower species in my garden!

I use data recording apps frequently, such as iRecord, Birdtrack and other seasonal citizen science projects such as The Big Garden Birdwatch, The Great British Bee Hunt and the Big Butterfly Count, so I was really excited to see that Plantlife are also doing a Wildflower Hunt! This is a great idea to encourage people to take an interest in the wild flowers around them, their importance for our eco system and the benefits they have on our well being. Who doesn’t love a wildflower meadow, finding beauty in the pavement, growing out of walls, around lakes and rivers and very importantly, in our own garden! You can download a recording sheet to make it fun and also help with identification. Just submit your results online afterwards to build up an important picture of where our wildflowers are growing and  how we can protect them. Once you start looking at flowers, other things start appearing – butterflies, bees, beetles, hoverflies and a wealth of other spider and fly species! It’s only when we look closely, that we see the beauty of the everyday. It’s a great way to be a citizen scientist too! So give it a go and get a little competitive too! I entered in my tally for the garden this evening and scored 14 points, although many of the species I found weren’t on the list, so I’m not sure how that works. I’ll ask Plantlife! 😉

Here is a collation of some of the other flowers that are in our garden.

I do apologise for the short blog today, I have quite a lot of homework to do…and of course Springwatch (does that count as a Random Act of Wildness;)!

Let me know if you’re getting involved! Thanks for reading.

Dara