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Wild About Whitstable Week 2023

Monday 7th Aug - Sunday 13th August 2023 - more info to follow


See details of last year's event below


A week from 8th -14th August, 2022 of nature related activities and adventures for all ages was organised by the Eco Group of CT5 People's Forum. A community collaboration by many individuals and groups who share a common desire to improve and celebrate bio diversity in CT5 and beyond.


As far as we know, no town has ever done anything like this, so it was a first!



provided details of the Wild About Whitstable programme with a day-by-day guide to what was on, who it was for, how to book and how to join.




CT5 People's Forum Eco Group hosted a Wild About Whitstable Event Office, opened daily during the WAW week from 11.00-16.00 at the United Reform Church, Middle Wall.


Also at The United Reform Church, but in the main Hall we held an Eco Fair on Saturday 13th Aug, 12.30-16.30. This brought together many of the participants in the week and others. Despite the blazing heat, the fair was a great success.“


Highlights of the Week


Tales of Flora: Folklore of Wild Plants

Tuesday 9 August, 14.30

What can be done with stinging nettles, and what can be cured by crawling under bramble arches? Which plant is known as bellies-and-bums-fingers-and-thumbs?

To find answers to some of these questions, around 20 people enjoyed a wild flower walk with Roy Vickery, former Senior Botanist at the Natural History Museum and President of South London Botanical Institute.


Roy led the walk around Whitstable Castle gardens telling tales of the wild flowers present, their alternative names, uses through history and other stories such as….. throughout the country, children playing in the fields, would often gather the seeds of mallow and eat them – they called the seeds cheeses.


And the plant known as bellies-and-bums-fingers-and-thumbs – one of its many alternative local names …. is Bird’s-foot trefoil.

Common Mallow





For more information on Roy’s work see http://www.plant-lore.com/


and his book Vickery’s Folk Flora which can be bought or ordered from Blueprint Coffee and Books.










Sealife around the Street

Wednesday 10 August, 17.30


Ian Tittley, from the Natural History Museum led a walk along the beach up to and along Whitstable Street. The walk was attended by around 20 people who enjoyed learning about the diversity of plants and animals found at low tide, including shell fish such as cockles and oysters, and seaweeds including Sargassum muticum or Wireweed, a non-native species of seaweed originating in the Pacific Ocean, first found in Britain in 1973, arriving in Margate in 1988 and now one of the most abundant seaweeds on the beaches of Whitstable and Herne Bay.


A display about sea weeds of Kent can be seen in Whitstable Museum in December.

Wireweed Sargassum muticum on the beach

A walk on the Wildside – after sunset - Bat Walk and Moth Evening

Wednesday 10 August, 20.15


Around 40 people came to find out about Whitstable's nocturnal wildlife around the Castle Gardens.


After an introductory talk with members of the Kent Bat Group, visitors were rewarded by the sight of common pipistrelles feeding around the tree canopy in the Castle grounds.


Andy Taylor described some of the moths caught in the moth light-traps that had been set in the Castle grounds. Moths seen included Jersey tiger moth, Box tree moth and Tree Lichen Beauty – all recent colonists and migrants, while our local moths were represented by various Yellow Underwing species, White Ermine and Marbled Beauty.

Common Pipistrelle bat in flight (c) BCT

Jersey Tiger moth © Andy Taylor

Investigating the moth trap © Helen Smith

Talk - Eels: from the Domesday Book to the Mighty Boosh

Friday 12 August, St Alphege Church


Matthew Hatchwell, gave an inspiring talk about eels, one of the iconic protected and endangered species we have locally. Matthew spoke of its marathon migration between Europe and the Sargasso Sea, threats to the survival of this critically endangered fish, and its place in British history and popular culture. This was followed by a lively discussion with lots of interesting questions from the audience.


Glass eel © Sarah Cuttle

Hog’s fennel – Nationally rare, locally plentiful - Whitstable Museum

8 August to September


Whitstable Museum hosted a display about hog’s fennel Peucedanum officinale, a nationally rare plant which thrives along Tankerton slopes and in Faversham. The display included images of historical herbarium specimens from the Natural History Museum, London, photographs of hog’s fennel on the Tankerton slopes (by Sue Carfrae) and of the moths dependent on hog’s fennel as a food plant – the Fisher’s estuarine moth Gortyna borelii ssp lunata and the micro-moth Agonopterix putridella (photographed by Andy Taylor).


Hog’s Fennel © Sue Carfrae

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