DWT now has 46 nature reserves, 30+ paid staff, 12,000 members and one education centre.
With an annual turnover of about £1.5 million, the trust has to be run as a small (not for profit) company. We are independent of government and get most of our external funding from the lottery, landfill tax, charitable trusts, donations and the occasional legacy......but it is an uphill struggle each year to make ends meet, as you might imagine.
Three front-line teams (conservation, education and reserves) are backed up by admin. and marketing teams. The peregrine work falls within the education ('people and wildlife') team's work though most of our time is devoted to working with children, mainly in schools and at our centre but also informally in holiday time.To read more about the Trust (including how to join - and before the subs go up!) go to http://www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/
NB
Ps. For those of you who live abroad, Derbyshire is situated right in the middle of the UK, about as far away from the sea as you can get! The north of the county falls within the Peak District National Park and includes high moorland and limestone dales which are rich in wildflowers. Further south, the county is a mixture of attractive, undulating farmland, somewhat less attractive open-cast (and previously) deep coal mining areas and towns and one major city (Derby). Just south of Derby, the valley of the River Trent runs across the county, with associated gravel workings and reservoirs, were the peregrines hunt for waders and duck.
Further post-script: Today saw our first concerted attack by spammers on this blog, with inappropriate advertising left in the comment on some of our archived posts. We'll leave it a while to see how it goes, or if Blogger can resolve it, but it may be necessary to reinstate comment moderation should it get bad. Sorry. (May we warn you NOT TO CLICK on the names of any suspicious-looking names, as this could take you to inappropriate or malicious websites.)
14 comments:
What in the name of heaven is that critter down at the bottom of the trust's page, next to the bird :-)
its a flower that looks like a duck.
A duck with wings !! Jennie, HK.
A duck with wings and a ball on its head! think its a very exotic flower maybe someone will come up with a name for it no doubt.
Bee orchid's exotic flower on the left and buzzard's head and shoulders on the right....how's that sound? Hardly deserving the 'critter' label, either of them!
NB
p.s. The bee orchid looks bee-like in order to attract bees which then cross-pollinate the flowers - at least that's the theory. In practice they mostly pollinate themselves I gather.
NB
Bird on the nestbox.
Oooooooo - I wish I'd looked at the blog earlier as I knew it was a bee orchid!!! When I was a very little girl (many many years ago now) I found one of these on one of the chalk hillsides in High Wycombe and I picked it to go and show my mum and dad (we're talking pre PC days here) the bee that was on it - it fooled me! I never picked one again but they've always been special to me since then. That buzzard looks awfully like a red kite? I know they're very different in flight but the head looks very similar. I don't live in High Wycombe now but I work there (as regular readers will know - yes, I SHOULD be getting on with my work, not reading this) and I can almost see that hillside from my office. It is still there, undeveloped but I wonder if the bee orchids are too?
Sue H, Wendover Bucks
Lovely to see a peregrine on the ledge most mornings this week. I saw two the other day. Intrigued by the "critter" I had to look and I can see how the orchid resembles a duck - but a rather strange looking one!!!
A birdie resting on the nest, a lovely scene. Jennie, HK.
19.40 a lovely peegrine on the nest then its was gone in an instance wish i came on earlier, if you look on the left side camera there is what looks like a turquoise bluey green bead like ring has this been noticed? is it a ring of one of birds on the menu? although it looks to thick to be a bird ring can someone shed some light on it or do i need to upgrade my specs.
follow up to last blog bird is now on the right hand side of the camera and the small ring is just next to it time is 19.47. ring can be seen on both cameras but more clearly i think on the left one.
studying it i think it might just be bird poo on a bit of gravel depending on the light and the time of day.
Hello everyone.
Just to warn you that this blog has been hit by its first spamming attack, with inappropriate advertising left in past comments. We'll leave it a while to see how it goes, but it may be necessary to reinstate comment moderation should it get bad.
Pax Canada.
just to let you know on the frodo cam in Australia the falcon has settled down on the gravel now for a couple of days, so she may be laying her eggs soon
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