York Literature Festival is Buzzing!

I’m very excited to have teamed up with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and the City of York Council to create a free It’s Buzzing! gig as part of the York Literature Festival.

The unique thing about this performance is that it will be followed by an hour-long Wildlife Walk through Rowntree Park, led by wildlife experts Vicky Harland, of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, and Stephen Whittaker of City of York Council. Who knows what mini-beasts we might encounter …!

What’s It’s Buzzing!? Find out here
When? Sunday 11 March, 1pm – 3pm
Where? The Pavilion, Rowntree Park, York
Who for? All the family – suitable for children of 7 upwards.
Refreshments? Provided
Cost? Free
Booking? Essential! Contact Vicky Harland on victoriah@yorkshirewt.cix.co.uk, 01904 659570 or 0789 6674809

If you’re wondering whether to come or not, read what the audiences at previous It’s Buzzing! gigs have had to say about it here.

This is the first York Literature Festival, and I’m very proud to be taking part. I’m grateful to festival organiser Anne Mortimer, to Vicky Harland at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and Stephen Whittaker at City of York Council for their help in making this event possible.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Anneliese Emmans Dean – info@theBigBuzz.biz

Return to theBigBuzz website

First butterfly of the year!

Well, there I was leaving a message on my friend Catherine’s answerphone when I saw something flutter into – and straight out of - our garden. A butterfly?!? I dropped the phone and flew out of the house in my slippers, grabbing my camera en route, and went on the hunt of the could-it-possibly-be-a-butterfly.

And lo and behold, in our neighbours’ back garden, I saw that it very definitely was a butterfly. A Red admiral. (I had assumed it would be a Peacock, as they tend to be the first ones I see each year. But that’s usually around April. Last year, for example, my first Peacock sighting in the garden was on 16 April.) 

The very-definitely-a-Red-admiral was fluttering around and then came to rest at the top of our neighbours’ white back door. I tried to get a photo, but it was gone again before I could get in very close.

Off it fluttered, and off I followed, round the fronts of other neighbours’ houses. It stopped now and again at the top of white window frames, and eventually I managed to get a picture. It’s not the world’s best photograph by any manner of means, it does prove that I did just see a Red admiral, at 13:45  on Wednesday 21 February 2007.

The reason I say it does prove it is that I tried to enter the sighting on the UK Phenology Network website, and they said it was too unusual a sighting to enter on their records till they’d checked it out!

Interestingly, the Red admiral was the last butterfly I saw here last year, on 30 November, which you can all about it at my Surprise Visitor post.