In 2023 we set up the Just Transition Wakefield Nature Watch. Through this project we hope to make the district a more biodiverse and nature friendly place. We hope that members of the community will join in, learn more about the wildlife that lives in the district and hopefully be inspired to make positive improvements in their own gardens and/or communal spaces.

The project is based around identifying and recording wildlife within the district using the popular website and app iNaturalist, which you can sign up to here. The quickest way to make an observation is to use the smartphone app to upload either an image or audio clip. The app will then help you to identify the subject and upload the record to the iNaturalist database (when the record is verified by other iNaturalist users, the record will also be added to other national and global wildlife recording databases). More information on how to use the iNaturalist platform can be viewed on the Getting Started pages of the iNaturalist website here.

Once you have identified the wildlife in your area you may want to learn a little bit more about the particular species that you have recorded and look at what changes you can implement within your space to support them. For example you could see if any of the birds that you might have recorded are on the red or amber sections of the Birds of Conservation Concern summary which can be found here. You could then install nest boxes that suit that particular species and put up feeders containing food that the particular species prefers. Some other examples could be to grow wild flowers to support pollinators or only cut grass at certain times of the year to protect amphibians.

A great resource for guidance on making practical improvements for wildlife is Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s #TeamWilder pages. You can access many toolkits that cover improvements to support many different species in both bigger and smaller spaces. Click here to access.

We have set up an iNaturalist project page on the iNaturalist website to help collate, display and review records that have been made within the district, click here to see the main project page and the various sub projects that we have created.

If you look after a communal space within the district and would like us to help you set up a sub project within our main iNaturalist project then please get in touch using the contact link at the bottom of the page. You can also follow our Just Transition Wakefield Nature Watch facebook page here to keep up to date with the latest news.