Nature surrounds us and can be seen everywhere from the rural countryside to busy, urban areas. As the Canal & River Trust launches its annual Great Nature Watch campaign, it is calling for people to ‘Stop, Look and Listen’ to what’s happening around them, following survey results which show surprising gaps in people’s nature knowledge. This year the Trust has worked with the renowned Wildlife Sound Recording Society (WSRS) to create a series of nature noises and challenge people to identify them as part of its Wildlife Ear and Eye Q test. Surveying toddlers to OAPs, the results showed that 25% of parents and 30% of children could not identify the sound a duck makes, plus 23% of parents and nearly a third of children thought that ducks have yellow feathers, perhaps the result of children’s TV programmes such as Peppa Pig.
Findings also show that 76% of parents believe that they are less knowledgeable about nature than the previous generation with 68% of parents also believing that their children are less knowledgeable about nature than they were at their age. When put to the test the gap in wildlife knowledge between parents and their children is actually surprisingly close, however the gap between grandparents and their adult children and grandchildren is much bigger.
In a bid to stem this decline of wildlife knowledge, the Trust has created an interactive guide and test on its website with audio and images to learn about some of the wildlife visitors can find along its 2,000 miles of waterways.
Dr Mark Robinson, national ecologist for the Canal & River Trust, says: “It’s a shame to see that people’s knowledge of nature is declining, but this can easily be reversed. Did you know that a blackbird’s song mimics its surrounding noise, or could you identify the sound a fox makes? Just step outside your front door, stop, look and listen, and you can hear such a variety of nature sounds.”
Additional results from the Ear and Eye Q test show that 63% of parents and 69% of their kids incorrectly believe that owls can rotate their head 360 degrees, while both parents and their kids (44% & 54%) thought that goldfish have a mere 3 second memory. In fact goldfish have the ability to store information for up to five months!
Richard Beard from the Wildlife Sound Recording Society, says: ‘It’s great to be working with the Canal & River Trust on such an interesting topic. At the society we have been recording the sounds of nature for years, from the dawn chorus to the elusive otter. To be able to share these with the British public, as well as encourage everyone to listen to their surrounding nature, is fantastic.”
Dr Mark Robinson continues: “Canals and rivers provide a fantastic nature reserve right on your doorstep and they’re free. By taking part in our Great Nature Watch you can not only increase your own nature know-how by spotting and listening to a wide variety of wildlife but help us monitor the numbers of species living on our waterways, which is essential when looking after and maintaining a 200 year old part of our industrial history.”
Wildlife sightings can be submitted by downloading the Trust’s free mobile app: eNatureWatch (or search Canal & River Trust in the Apple App Store /Google Play Store). Anyone can take part and record as many sightings as they like between now and the end of September.
Visit;
www.canalrivertrust.org.uk/great-nature-watch for more details and to test your own nature knowledge or join in the conversation on Twitter at #greatnaturewatch
