The Biodiversity Partnership, together with the AONB partnership, will be holding a Bioblitz event for the third year running.

On Wednesday 25th July we will be at the National Trust carpark at Compton Bay, on the Military Road all day from 10.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m.
There will be activities looking for clifftop flowers and butterflies, fossils and rock pooling. There will be displays from conservation organisations and iSpot and we will be recording as many different plants and animals as we can find during the day. Come along and take part.

If you are a recorder, please do drop by for a while to spot wildlife to add to our species list, and help others with their ID skills if you like.

Make a note in your diaries, see you down there!

Link: http://www.iwhg.org/competition.html

The Isle of Wight Hedgelaying Competition 2012 is on Saturday 25 February 2012: 1000 until 1500. Prizes will be presented at approx. 1530.

Location: New Barn Farm, Calbourne (on main road towards Newport). Map

Interested in entering? Download the form here.

The 20th Annual IW Hedgelaying Competition is to be held on Saturday 25th February 2012 from 10:00am until 3:30pm. This year’s site is at New Barn Farm, Sunhill, Calbourne, Isle of Wight PO30 4JA, off the main Newport-Calbourne road. (Grid ref SZ43418687). The site is provided by kind consent of Mr. Chris Spence.

Entry is free for competitors and observers; spectators are welcome. As usual there will be a glittering display of prizes and a very good chance of winning one.

Competition website

Lead sponsors this year:
Landscape Therapy; IW AONB;
Hants & IW Wildlife Trust, West Wight Landscape Partnership

Members of the Isle of Wight Biodiversity Action Plan Steering Group have contributed items to Finest Landscapes, the AONB newsletter, under the ?Go Wild on Wight? banner relating to climate change and what it might mean for biodiversity on an Island scale.

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The Island beaches have had a remarkable influx of ?sailors? this week, but not the ones you would usually expect, reports the Isle of Wight Council. Fort Victoria, Gurnard and Compton beaches have had hundreds of ?by-the-wind-sailors? washed up on the strand line.

The ?sailors? have a bluish disc about 8cm across with a sail-like structure projecting above the surface, which catches the wind, hence the name, and allows movement propelled by wind and tide. By-the-wind-sailors resemble jelly fish, but they are actually a colony of animals; one forms a float and others are specialised for feeding, reproduction or defence. They do have stinging tentacles hanging below the disc, which are used to stun their prey (of smaller marine plankton including young fish), but a sting is unlikely to be felt by people coming into contact with them.

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A long-snouted seahorse was found on 15th October 2006 in the Medina estuary, near the Folly Lake, when a local fisherman inspected his nets.

A seahorse features on the Isle of Wight College logo, and on the former Isle of Wight County Council coat of arms, but authenticated records are few and far between.

In 1909, they were described by local naturalist Percy Wadham as ?rare off Hampshire?. In the last few years there have been three live records of the long-snouted seahorse and one dead short-snouted seahorse from Island waters and beaches.

Seahorses are associated with seagrass beds, which are found in the Solent along the northern coast of the Island and along the Hampshire coastline. The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust is currently organising the Solent Seagrass Project to investigate this habitat. It is important as a nursery ground for juvenile fish and crustaceans like shrimps and crabs as well as being a winter feeding ground for brent geese.