Meeting of Knighton Wild, Tuesday 2nd April, 7.30 pm at Knighton Parish Centre, Church Lane, Knighton, Leicester LE2 3WG. Entry is £3 pay at the door. Polecats are small and elusive carnivores that some may not have heard of, let alone seen. Jack Riggall is an associate tutor for the Field Studies Council, teaching courses […]
Category: Wildlife
Local Schools Hedgehog Event – 27th February 2024 – 17:30-19:30
Come to a free talk about Hedgehogs at Lancaster Academy, Knighton Lane East Leicester LE2 6FU on Tuesday 27th February. Tea, coffee, and light refreshments available from 17:30, with presentations starting at 18:00. Organised by the Sustainable Schoold Team, the meeting will hear from local hedgehog expert Bev Hart, and Paul and Janey who are […]
Waxwings in Knighton – January 2024
Waxwings (Bombycilla garrulus) are one of those birds that get birdwatchers jumping in their cars and driving to a location to try to see them. They are a stunningly attractive bird with bright yellow, white and red markings against a pinkish buff background, black on their face and throat, and a fine crest. They are […]
Parakeets in Knighton – Winter 2023
Residents who live on Welford Road between Aberdale Road/Overdale Road and Asquith Boulevard/Palmerston Way are no doubt well aware of their presence, but other people who live round Knighton may not know that up to 60 Ring-necked Parakeets or Rose-ringed Parakeets (Psittacula krameri) gather in trees on Welford Road every evening to roost. Ring-necked parakeets […]
Tree Snot?
What is the source of this mysterious alien jelly in Attenborough Arboretum? If you’ve been missing Autumnwatch on the telly after the BBC cancelled it, you may have been catching up with Chris Packham’s free online alternative, 8 Out Of 10 Bats on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@8OutOf10Bats If you’ve been watching the series you’ll already know the […]
Otter monitoring June 2023
The second otter survey of the Saffron Brook took place on Friday June 16th. The conditions were very different from the last time, there having been no rain for about three weeks apart from a heavy thunderstorm four days previously. The temperature when we started at 10 am was already 18 degrees and was only […]
Knighton Nature Notes 10: Have you seen Vanessa
Inspite of the rain, there have been a lot of Red Admiral Butterflies around. That’s nice, but why? Butterfly Conservation says that their annual Big Butterfly Count in July recorded a four-fold increase in sightings of the Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta. Certainly we seem to have had more Red Admirals in Knighton than in recent […]
Mammal Spotter Competition – August 2023
Leicestershire and Rutland Mammals Group is running a competition to get people to record as many mammals as possible during the course of August 2023. The competition is run in conjunction with NatureSpot, where participants can record what they see, and aims to get as many people sending in records of mammals in Leicester, Leicestershire […]
Knighton Nature Notes 9: At last a few more insects in Knighton
After what seemed like a very long wait, the insects finally returned to Knighton in June. Spring 2023 seemed to be buried under a mountain of aphids – you may have noticed the sticky “honeydew” everywhere (exacerbated by the lack of rain). Finally in June the predators started to catch up. Ladybird pupae were abundant […]
Small but perfectly formed
Alan Cann reports on the latest Knighton Wild foray into the wild. It never occurred to me when I suggested Knighton Wild might like to run a Big Bug Weekend that people might be expecting to find big bugs – tarantulas, praying mantis, etc. Instead of jungle giants, on our bug hunt we found tiny […]
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