Post 400 - Care for nature? Clean for Nature!

My second litter pick at Silton Forest

Hey everyone, today's Post 400 and as you can tell, 400 is a special number and I thought that it would be good to do a special post for the day. I'd hoped to have had a reply from my MP from the last letter I wrote but nothing has come yet. So instead I decided to return to a topic I've covered before (Day 139) that I think is very annoying and harmful to wildlife. Litter!

For the first Birders Against Wildlife Crime conference I wrote an essay about litter and how it harms wildlife which won me a ticket to the conference.  As I've been doing my Yorkshire reserves challenge (there will be a full update on it in the not too distant future)  whenever I'm at any reserve I'll find at least a couple of pieces of litter. I find this really annoying, it looks horrid, it harms wildlife and it's illegal!
So a couple of things got me thinking.  A Planet Fit for Nature have 'A Family fit for nature' competition you can see at the link.  I was also watching Easter Watch and there was a little bit that was talking about a litter campaign that they were launching called Do Something Great. This is basically about volunteering and doing something positive for nature. One idea was whenever you go to the beach try to do a '2 minute beach clean' or at least pick some little bits up. As I don't live too close to the coast I try to pick up whatever I see anywhere (especially at a nature reserve) and including at the beach of course when I do get there. So this is why I'm going to launch my  'Clean For Nature' campaign as a mini in-challenge campaign while I do my reserves challenge.


Only found a little bit at
Garbutt Woods :-)

It's not a new idea, but I hope my small actions will help the nature at the places I visit and stop some plastic from reaching the sea. It's a bit like the 2 minute beach cleans and Keep Britain Tidy campaigns. Any body could do it but be careful and use gloves if you can!

It only involves picking up whatever non-biodegradable litter you can find (such as cans, bottles, etcetera) in anywhere you think will damage nature (e.g. at the beach, nature reserves, grassy areas and even town centres). You don't have to do this all the time but if you go somewhere new then try to pick up what you see. All you need to do is take a plastic bag out with you on a walk and just to pick up what any litter you see on the walk you go on. You don't have to go out just to do this you can just go on a walk and pick up what you can see.


Quarry Moor Pick 1

If you do do this and join in my mini campaign it would be great to Tweet me and tell me where you did it and a picture of what you got, or a picture of you doing it. My twitter handle is @nerdboy386. I've put a few pics on the post of some of the rubbish I've collected at some of the places I've been to.


Quarry Moor Pick 2

If you don't want to clean up places yourself the Keep Britain Tidy campaign has an app that helps you to report littering to the local Council and then they should clean it up if it's a big problem.

Also, seeing as it's a special day today, I think it's a good time to announce my new website. The web address is yearofnature.co.uk. It's not 100% done yet, for example I want to add a photo gallery and a shop, but my blog will be updated regularly on there and my About page is there and being added to as well. All these things will be finished in the not to distant future. I've also got an Actions page so bits of this blog will be on there too.


Really annoying!
All that
litter right by the bin!
Sadly most of it was from
fast food place next door.

When I get to it I hope to have a little web shop with things like some of my photos and maybe T-shirts with some of my nature puns and other merchandise. Any profits will help to fund my nature antics and some will go to nature charities. I did this at Christmas with a calendar and I made enough money to buy a second hand telescope!

My website will also have a page for just keeping you updated on my reserves challenge, that page isn't up yet but again it will be soon. You could also Tweet me with any other ideas of pages I could add to the website.

Thanks to anybody that's going to be doing all these things I've mentioned, and please promote my campaign and see if anybody else will do this for me. I will be compiling all of the names I get through and putting them into a page either on my blog or my website and taking some of my favourite photos and featuring them in the page.

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.