May 2006 - Posts

Habitat for Butterflies

 

Ann and Jeff have been working extremely hard to get the Butterfly Tunnel ready for the new butterflies, everything must be perfect for them to survive. There are some new photographs in the gallery of the progress.

(take a look & leave a comment!)

 

 
Setting up a habitat for the Butterflies

 

The small team have worked very hard, digging over solid ground to create flower beds and Shane has been cutting wood to make a wonderful frame for the trellis to be fixed too, this will give our climbing plants somewhere to go! Hundreds of plants have been planted inside the tunnel by our Residents, Staff & Volunteers. The tunnel has been re-netted with special netting and a irrigation system has been fitted, there is also a heater and a fan which have been installed.

 

Jeff has made a cupboard for the butterfly to hatch out in, we are calling it the Butterfly Tardiest (B.T) (Like in Doctor Who) there is a special heater in this B.T keeping it to a constant 25c, allowing the butterfly to be warm enough to hatch.

Posted Monday, May 22, 2006 4:55 PM by Julie O'Neill | 4 comment(s)

Butterfly Pupae is hung to hatch

Yesterday the pupae arrived at the centre and Ann and Jeff were hard at work, to ensure the butterflies will have everything that they need to survive. Lots of planting has taken place, with lots of bright and beautiful plants.

Ann spent her afternoon gluing the pupae to canes inside a specially built heat cupboard; the pupae would have hung from tree in it’s natural habitat.

 

To see how the pupae look hanging in the cupboard take a look at the Rare Breeds Gallery!

Posted Friday, May 19, 2006 12:09 PM by Julie O'Neill | 7 comment(s)

Butterfly Pupae arrives at Rare Breeds
 
Can you tell me what this package is made from?

The Butterfly Pupae arrived at the Rare Breeds Centre this morning, Please take a look at the Rare Breeds Gallery to see how the Butterfly Pupae was packaged. It was delivered by Royal Mail!!  I have also posted some photographs of the Pupae inside the packaging.

Posted Thursday, May 18, 2006 2:42 PM by Julie O'Neill | 2 comment(s)

Rare Breeds ICT meeting
A meeting is taking place on Wednesday 10th May at The Rare Breeds Centre at Woodchurch to discuss the way ICT will provide a connection between activities at the centre and Ashford's rural schools.

You may have noticed that Julie O'Neill, marketing manager at the centre has been busy with a digital camera, and has uploaded some wonderful pictures into their gallery already. Well ... its time to let the kids start to see whats going on.

Kent County Council Digital Curriculum Team is supporting the project with the loan of a digital camera, digital camcorder and laptop (for editing) with the aim of working with the schools to record '... a year with nature'.

Gill Lancaster, the Rare Breeds project coordinator, will be able to use the talents of Donna Rogers, the ICT project manager, and Julie O'Neill at the centre to create some great resources over the Summer.

What we want you to do is to visit the  rare breeds blog, see the pictures ... and remember to leave a comment please. We would also like your  pupils and students to leave comments.

The aim of the ICT project is to use  images and  movies to show the cycle of nature from the new births of spring (you HAVE to see the pictures of feet in trough Douglas, he's real cute)...  to the harvest of Autumn. This will provide a bank of resources for teachers, and will be brought together at the Creativity week at the centre in the Autumn.



Posted Tuesday, May 09, 2006 7:45 PM by AlanDay | 2 comment(s)