What nature treasures can you find around the church and in the old graveyard?  Horsley Nature Group has created an iSpy recording sheet showing pictures of flowers, trees, insects, small mammals that you are likely to spot in the summer, in and around Horsley. 

Confined to the churchyard, we will provide the record sheet and a map of the grounds. The map will showing a suggested route and the areas that you can explore.  We will also show you how to download a number of good Identification Apps, if you haven’t already.  Then just Spot it, and Tick it!  Once you have finished, and this is important, you will come back to the church and record your findings on our Big Nature Chart.  This chart will also list the all the species that have been recorded in the church grounds, by you as well as by the experts who are on hand.

This is an all-day drop-in activity 10am to 4pm.  It is open to all ages, although children of primary age and under must be accompanied by a responsible adult. For older children, an adult must be within reach on the site.

We recommend pre-downloading any of the following smart-phone Apps to aid identification:  Merlin – identifies birds by sound; Obsidentify – birds, plants, insect, other animals, fungi etc by photo; Flora Incognita – plants by photo; Seek – birds, plants, insects, other animals by photo.

We have plans to develop the i-SPY sheet into an on-line interactive App which can be downloaded for use around the parish of Horsley.  So ‘Horsley Nature’ group’s first i-Spy Hunt at the Nature Fest will be the prototype!  We hope to update the ‘Spot it, Tick It’ sheets for different seasons or for the specific habitats that occur around Horsley parish.  This concept is being developed by ‘Horsley Nature’, including Paul Hofman, Heather MacLennan and Jude Smith.