It’s been a buzzing few months here in the Outer Hebrides as excitement builds for this year’s Outer Hebrides Wildlife Festival! Here’s an update from our Outer Hebrides People Engagement Officer, Mairi:
🌿 Community Connections & Festival Prep
I’ve been working hand-in-hand with local partners, community groups, and passionate individuals to shape a truly vibrant programme of events that celebrate our incredible island species and wild spaces. From supporting event organisers with planning, to spreading the word about our unique biodiversity, it’s been fantastic to see the energy and enthusiasm growing across the islands.
🎓 Training up and coming conservationists
One of the highlights from the past few months has been supporting our brilliant new People Engagement Trainee, Callum! I’ve been helping Callum find their feet and introduced them to aspects of festival planning, community engagement, and wider Species on the Edge activities.
I’ve also been supporting University of Glasgow students who are preparing to lead Bumblebee Safaris as part of our Wildlife Festival Fringe Festival. Last year’s safaris led to increased interest in our citizen science programme, BeeWalk, and a new influx of volunteers signing up for the survey scheme. Hopefully even more will be inspired to get involved after this year’s Bumblebee Safaris!
🐝 Citizen Science in Action
I’ve loved supporting this new and growing group of citizen science volunteers taking part in BeeWalk surveys across the islands – a great way to keep track of bumblebee populations and connect people with the pollinators in their patch. If you’re interested in getting involved, you can find out more here: BeeWalk
🌾 Collaborating for Nature
It’s been brilliant to link up with other organisations too – for example the Floodplain Meadows Partnership from the Open University – to share ideas and explore how we can work together to benefit wildlife and communities.
🎉 What’s Next?
With the Wildlife Festival just around the corner, I’ll be out and about supporting events, helping communities get involved, and championing the amazing species we share our islands with.
Whether you’re heading to a Bumblebee G&T tasting, a bat walk, a whale-spotting boat trip, or a creative coastal performance, there’s something for everyone. The full programme will go live later this month – we’ll let you know once it’s up and you can get planning your festival!
🌊 Seashore Safari – A Regular Festival Highlight at Dalmore
I am especially pleased to be supporting Dr Anne McGregor and her University of Glasgow team for a return visit during this year’s Wildlife Festival. They delivered an outstanding Seashore Safari event as part of last year’s Festival and developed many community relationships through their fieldwork and public engagement events.
You can see some of their activities and many familiar local faces and places, captured in a video “IN LEWIS” produced by the University of Glasgow:
The video includes acknowledgements to the Outer Hebrides Wildlife Festival and many others, along with this generous reflection from Anne McGregor:
“The Outer Hebrides Wildlife Festival is an amazing initiative that shows how interlinked people are with nature, particularly in such a unique place as the Outer Hebrides. By involving final-year undergraduate students to support the delivery of a public outreach event, they gained experience in a key area that is hard to replicate in the traditional university setting, and many students commented on the benefits of this experience in their course feedback. The Species on the Edge team coordinating the festival did an amazing job in organising this event!”
Keep up to date
To keep up to date with all that we’ve got going on in the Outer Hebrides and to receive notifications of new events and opportunities, sign up to the Species on the Edge mailing list, keep an eye on the Species on the Edge social media channels, or get in touch with Mairi: Mairi Carrey mairi.carrey@bumblebeeconservation.org
