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May 2020 May 2020
a little more about the beauty of the night sky when viewed from the Best Village
in Dorset. BERE REGIS WILDLIFE AND
To this end, I encourage you to download a free educational program named ENVIRONMENT GROUP
‘Marble’.
This interactive program shows our World from space. It has many interesting We hope you are keeping safe and well during these
features including showing one where the GP* (Geographical Position) of the Sun difficult and troubling times.
is on the Earth’s surface in real time, showing up as a golden spot on the Earth.
With the warmth of Spring our wildlife has become
By zooming in to it and leaving the cursor on it for about 2 minutes, you will see more active (eg butterflies are on the wing, birds are
that the sun’s GP moves on westward across the Earth’s surface (at about ¼ miles singing their hearts out in attempts to find a mate,
per second). hedgehogs are wandering at nights and bats are flying at dusk), trees are
bursting into leaf and blossom and the beautiful blue of our native bluebells is
Visit https://marble.kde.org/ decorating local woods. Make the most of these warmer months and if you are
to download to your PC (Mac able to use your dose of daily exercise to get out to see, hear and smell these
version too) natural wonders.

Another great stargazing
download for PC is ‘Sky and Nature Notes
Telescope’.
In an attempt to bring nature to you during the lockdown we are posting regular
https://skyandtelescope.org/ Nature Notes on Facebook and distributing them to all on our mailing list. Do look
interactive-sky-chart/
out for them – they provide some information on local and seasonal wildlife sights,
This is a well –designed be they plants, animals, insects etc, and are accompanied by some amazing
interactive tool that will photos. Let us know if there is anything you would like us to cover.
recognise your position and
give you the local view of the sky in real time. It contains lots of toggle switches for
different ways of presenting the Bere Regis sky. This is a real beauty ‘plain Nature Sightings
language’ tool for us ‘country folk’ to use. The green square on the sky circle can We would be very
be moved for the required view e.g. looking South.
interested to hear of
Have fun with your newly discovered, built-in ‘measuring tools’, making sure that your local wildlife
you wash them well too! sightings (common or
unusual), so as to
David Gray build up a picture of
what is about and
*The GP of a planet or star is best defined thus:
when it first arrives /
Imagine a laser beam between the centre of the sun /planet and the centre of emerges.
the Earth. Where the laser beam passes through the Earth’s surface is the GP of
The photo is of a long-
the sun/planet.
tailed tit – often
Since the Earth is rotating to the East, the GP of the sun/planet will be moving to appearing in gardens
the West (at approximately ¼ mile per second). in a group. Photo
donated to Dorset
Wildlife Trust by Ken
Dolbear.

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