{"id":1760,"date":"2023-03-08T16:41:33","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T15:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/?p=1760"},"modified":"2023-06-01T08:57:06","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T07:57:06","slug":"2nd-march-2023-british-butterflies-and-a-changing-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/2023\/2nd-march-2023-british-butterflies-and-a-changing-environment","title":{"rendered":"2nd March 2023- British Butterflies and a Changing Environment &#8211; Speaker  Dr Ian Bedford"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1761 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Butterfly-300x218.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"218\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Butterfly-300x218.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Butterfly.jpg 549w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Dr Ian Bedford &#8211; aka the bug man &#8211; has been fascinated by insects and other invertebrates for most of his life and on 2nd March 2023, he came to talk to Fowlmere and Thriplow Gardening club about his lifelong work with butterflies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ian started out as an Amateur Entomologist, studying and conserving butterflies on the South Downs.\u00a0 He went on to pursue a professional career as an entomologist.\u00a0 For over 42 years undertook plant science research at the John Innes Centre (one of the UK&#8217;s leading research centres), where he became Head of the Entomology Department.\u00a0 Now retired, he continues to promote entomology and the environment through a wide range of public engagement activities.<\/p>\n<p>His talk about butterflies was beautifully illustrated with superb slides and filled with expert information and knowledge.\u00a0 It covered why butterflies are important indicators of the health of the environment.\u00a0 He showed us what a butterfly is and how to distinguish one from a moth. He talked about how many of the 58 species native to Britain are in serious decline. And how these butterflies are coping with global warming.\u00a0 And lastly how we can help butterflies survive by attracting them to our gardens and so provide a link between specialist butterflies preservation sites.<\/p>\n<p>Ian left us with a sobering thought, that we can only do our little bit to help the environment.\u00a0 But that that little bit was important and to that end he left us with 3 tips \u2013 we should.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Make our gardens more butterfly (and insect) friendly. We should plant pollinator species that are drought tolerant and consider grasses as important sources for food and breeding.<\/li>\n<li>Use insect friendly alternatives to pesticides.<\/li>\n<li>Check that the plants we buy from garden centres have not been sprayed with chemicals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you are interested in further information, try <a href=\"http:\/\/www.greengardener.co.uk\">www.greengardener.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Rosemary Jones<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr Ian Bedford &#8211; aka the bug man &#8211; has been fascinated by insects and other invertebrates for most of his life and on 2nd March 2023, he came to talk to Fowlmere and Thriplow Gardening club about his lifelong &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/2023\/2nd-march-2023-british-butterflies-and-a-changing-environment\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-30"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1760"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1784,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions\/1784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}