Bioblitzes in Tarvin Woodland – 2025 Summary and 2026 Dates

The first of what is hoped will be many “Bioblitzes” in Tarvin woodland was held on the last Saturday in September, 2025. The idea behind such an event is to get a whole lot of families, serving as “Citizen Scientists”, to go through the woodland and see what creatures they can find.

If everyone finds a particular type of creature, then there are likely to be lots of them, while only one or two sightings might indicate greater scarcity. Repeating the exercise on a number of future occasions will then enable changes in populations of various creatures to be seen. The findings for 2025 are summarised below.

Woodlice and snails were the most frequently seen of the invertebrates and wood pigeons and magpies for the birds. The only mammals seen were grey squirrels. There were also sightings of animals not on our check sheet such as millipedes, centipedes, dunnocks and gold crests. All of these will be added to the Bioblitz check-off sheet for this year.

For the first session this year it was felt that a Spring weekend in late April or May would be good because by then the bees and amphibians should be moving around. It has now been agreed that Saturday 18th April 2026 will be this year’s first Bioblitz. The second Bioblitz will be held in parallel with the Apple Pressing Day on Saturday 3rd October 2026. Both days will run from 10am to 3pm.

This is a wonderful chance for families to engage in real science in Tarvin's own woodland, with Chester University’s experts on hand to identify what you find. Do come along and be a part of the fun!