The Cambridge Society of Cheshire and North Wales invites you to join them for a talk by Chole Aldridge, who will be speaking about her work at the Chester Zoo Nature Reserve in partnership with Chester Zoo’s Conservation team.

Chloe Aldridge, Monitoring Officer at RECORD, Cheshire’s Local Environmental Records Centre, will be giving us an insight into her work at the Chester Zoo Nature Reserve. You will be learning about how the habitats are providing space and opportunity for a range of native wildlife.

Five years ago at Chester Zoo, an agricultural field with a history of use for grazing or silage was turned into a mosaic of flower-rich meadow, ponds, reedbeds, and wet meadows. This expanded the tiny woodland that had been planted some years early in one corner of the field as the beginnings of a Nature Reserve.

Since then, the animals and plants arriving and taking advantage of this new space have been regularly recorded, and this talk focuses on the changes that have taken place as wildlife has quietly moved in. The monitoring programme focuses on plant diversity, dragonflies, butterflies, birds, bees, wasps, and hoverflies, and the presence of each and how they are using the site gives us more information about the changes that are happening and the management of the reserve.  The talk will provide a virtual visit to the reserve at various points across the spring and summer, introduce you to some of the vast network of plant and animal lives being lived out there, and give an insight into the process of gathering information.