With August and summer holidays in full swing, let’s stop for a moment, take a deep breath, wind back the clock, and reflect on what have been the highlights of this year so far. For Greening Steyning’s Biodiversity group, what stands out most is our ‘Green Day’ which took place at the end of May as part of this year’s Steyning Festival.

Greening Steyning wanted to reach out to the whole community with an underlying message of how we should be looking after the wildlife on our doorstep. Our local conservation groups worked together as a team under the banner of ‘Making Space for Wildlife’; Steyning for Trees, The Steyning Downland Scheme, the Community Orchard, the Abbey Road Project and St Andrew’s Church all shared what they do to help our local wildlife.

As a Weald to Waves Community Champion, Greening Steyning chose ‘Wildlife Corridors’ for the theme of Green Day and we made it a family event in every way; we opened with a children’s parade, an adventure along a wildlife corridor with obstacles to overcome along the way. Many of the children came dressed up as local wildlife, including deer and wonderful white storks, and carrying green leafed foliage. We continued the theme through all our children’s activities, including a wildlife story telling tent.

In the main marquee we invited the Weald to Waves team to run talks explaining the importance of wildlife corridors and how wildlife friendly gardens and urban greenspaces can fill in the gaps along the corridor, creating stepping stones across the county. With the magic of modern technology, people were then encouraged to pledge online to join Weald to Waves through the Gardens and Greenspaces project. To encourage more gardeners to make space for wildlife we also set up a demonstration wildlife friendly garden, complete with free seeds!

The day was memorable in so many ways, engaging young and old and working together as a community. Spreading the word about making more space for wildlife and the importance of wildlife corridors was also a lot of fun (and, what a bonus, the sun was shining down on us!).

Images by Frank Bull