Spring Watch Festival Brighton

Hi

I am here with my buddy Steve at the Spring Watch Festival in Stanmar Park Brighton.

We have brought along a display about my adventures and a display about local dolphin and seal sightings.

My display tells the story of my adventures so far, why I have been travelling, amazing wildlife and people I have meet and how we can all help the oceans.

My display also included a strandline object quiz and a demonstration explaining ocean acidification.

We were in a special area of the festival called the marine zone. We were inside a special tent, which was good as it soon started to rain.

On one side of us was a display by the Sussex Wildlife Trust.

Their display told people lots of things about marine wildlife around our coasts and included an actual beach

Above the beach was a cliff with model seabirds.

To the other side of us was a display by Planet Whale. They had an inflatable pilot whale.

The people running the stand had really cool whale hats. I wish I had one of those.

We spoke to lots of people. Even though it was raining, lots of people still came to the festival. I thought I would have a look around to see what else was going on at the festival.

I checked the map to see where I needed to go. I thought I would go and have a look at the birds of prey.

The birds of prey were amazing and looked beautiful and also a bit dangerous for a little bear like me.

This is a barn owl

and this is a hawk

This is a baby hawk which the man was hand rearing.

I thought I would watch the demonstration where they allow the birds to fly. I watched the hawks first and they were really fast.

Then this big bird was brought out into the arena.

The bird then flew and pounced on a lure - a pretend rabbit which is its natural food.

I thought the rabbit looked a bit too much like me and I was worried the bird might mistake me for its dinner so I went to look at some of the other exhibits.

Next I saw the llamas

They were very cute and looked a bit like camels without a hump.

We have lots of bees on Shoreham Beach because of the shingle plants, so I wanted to find out more about honey bees.The Brighton Bee Keepers were doing a demonstration.

This is a hive, you can see the honeycomb

Here are lots of honey bees in a special hive with a glass window where you can see all the bees inside.

I then went back to our displays and found they were very busy with lots of people asking about ocean acidification, having a go at my quiz, looking at the pictures of where I had travelled and also looking at my buddy Steve's dolphin model.

Wow! what an amazing day. I meet lots of people and I also met one of the children who came to my course back in January. You can see the course on the link below

http://adventuresofedthebear.blogspot.com/2011/01/teaching-children-about-oceans.html

I am feeling rather tired now and a bit hungry. I should have asked the bees for some honey.

Bye for now, Ed the Bear