Author: Jane Edwards

City Nature Challenge.

As many of our supporters may remember, the Friends have worked with the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and the Black Country on a similar project to the one below, but focusing on Hedgehogs. We thought you may want to try their latest project……

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The Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and the Black Country, EcoRecord and Birmingham Museums Trust are calling for local residents to take part in the City Nature Challenge and help showcase the rich diversity of wildlife across Birmingham, Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.

This global citizen science project takes place between Friday 30th April and Monday 3rd May 2021 and anyone can get involved by downloading the free iNaturalist app from inaturalist.org or from the Apple App Store or Google Play.

Simply take a photo of any wild plant or animal and upload it to the app where the species-recognition software helps with identification.  Any wildlife counts including birds, mammals, insects, trees, flowers, amphibians, reptiles, fungi, moss and lichen.

Birmingham and the Black Country took part for the first time in 2020, recording over 1,300 species – more than any other European city area!  244 cities took part across the world and Birmingham and the Black Country placed 31st by number of species recorded ahead of all other UK cities that took part.  Some of the highlights of 2020 challenge recorded by Birmingham and Black Country residents included Weasel, Red kite and otter poo as well as the area’s first record of a rare Box Bug (Gonocerus acuteangulatus).
Take the City Nature Challenge!

Gallipoli Campaign remembered.

Despite the ‘lockdown’ restrictions, the Friends were able to support a small gathering  to remember those lost as a result of the ill-fated Gallipoli Campaign.

FBEC Chairman Julia Griffin, Vice Chairman Coral Howard and member Pat Franklin joined Ian Binnie (Gallipoli Association),  Colonel (Retd.) Bob Carruthers (Royal Warwickshire Regiment Association) and Richard Millington (Warwickshire Yeomanry Association) joined together to remember all those who served in the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign of World War One.

For those with an interest, you can follow this link to a brochure containing more details prepared by the Gallipoli Association.   Anzac booklet.

ANZAC DAY- 25th April

Do you know how important Anzac day is ? Do you even know what it commemorates? 

This year the Friends will be meeting with Ian Binnie, who is the Education Coordinator of the Gallipoli Association, a charity that seeks to promote knowledge of the ill fated WW1 campaign, to mark the day by laying a small tribute at the grave of one of those lost in the campaign.

Ian has kindly produced a short video on the You Tube channel, explaining its importance. It can be accessed via this link. 

Please, remove the wrapping before leaving your flowers graveside.

We know how annoying litter can be, so can we make an appeal to visitors to the cemetery. Our worst litter problem is that of flower paper.  Once flowers are past their best they become light weight and they, along with their surrounding paper, get blown around the cemetery.

Please remove all the paper before leaving your flowers graveside.                  Thank you

New fence will improve view of Chapels.

Yet again Bereavement Services have come up trumps and installed a lovely new permanent fence around the chapel buildings. The original fencing was a temporary ‘builders yard’ type- and gave this magnificent building a look of  ‘waiting for demolition’ . Nothing could be further from the truth!

The new fence is a finer mesh and a shade of green that means it is less of an obstruction to the view of the chapels. We hope soon to be able to install some permanent information boards on the fence.