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World Sand Dune Day 2022: Thanks for Helping us Celebrate!
Each year, #WorldSandDuneDay takes place on the last Saturday of June. In 2022, this was Saturday June 25th.
We wanted to say a huge thank you for helping us celebrate #WorldSandDuneDay this year!
Despite the changeable weather, we were delighted to see 600 of you at our events on Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th of June. You took part in dune yoga sessions in Wales, a dune species bioblitz in Cornwall, and seed bomb making and pyrography in Devon. You dressed up as Victorian holidaymakers on the dunes at Sefton, and joined us for guided walks to learn about the bees, butterflies, bats, reptiles and orchids in our dunes all across England and Wales. Plus, those of you who joined our citizen science day in Cumbria helped put over 200 new sand dune species observations on iNaturalist.
Even if you couldn't get to the coast, (perhaps you were sheltering from the thunder and hail that we experienced at Braunton Burrows), you got involved on social media, sharing your dune photos and memories using #WorldSandDuneDay.
And that's just at Dynamic Dunescapes! We've loved seeing other organisations and communities run their own events aimed at celebrating our brilliant dune habitats, too. For example, the Coastal Knowledge podcast released an episode to celebrate World Sand Dune Day, all about climate change and dunes in Scotland. Listen to it on Apple Podcasts.
To celebrate the day, we launched two brilliant new films on our YouTube channel, from independent and student filmmakers in Wales.
Watch: 'Life in the Dunes; Discovering South Wales' by Grace Hunt
Grace Hunt is a recipient of a student bursary from Dynamic Dunescapes, and we were delighted to be able to help her create this fantastic short film exploring the dunes of south wales, the life that relies on them, and the work that conservation projects are doing to restore these important ecosystems.
Watch: #GowerWatch; Oxwich's Dynamic Dunescapes, with Madison Bowden-Parry
Join Madison Bowden-Parry (AKA Madison Wildlife) for a beautiful trip to Oxwich Dunes in South Wales, to find out more about this special habitat and the work that we're doing to try to restore it for wildlife. Meet Hannah, our Engagement Officer at Plantlife, and Pippa from Natural Resources Wales, to see what dune conservation on the Gower entails.
If you couldn't get to the coast, we also ran a series of online events.
You can catch up on these now on our YouTube channel, or by clicking the links below.
Watch: Birds in our sand dunes, with George Cook
Join keen birdwatcher and wildlife photographer, George Cook, for a talk about the many beautiful and fascinating birds that call our UK sand dunes home. Plus, hear his top tips for learning to ID different birdsong and photograph birds.
Watch: Dune Wildflowers, with botanist and author Leif Bersweden
Join botanist and author Leif Bersweden to find out more about the fascinating and beautiful wildflowers that are adapted for life in our coastal dune systems. Leif Bersweden is a writer, botanist and science communicator with a face-down, bottom-up approach to watching nature. He grew up in rural Wiltshire where he taught himself how to identify the local wildlife. More recently, Leif completed a genetics Ph.D. at Kew Gardens and is the author of The Orchid Hunter (2017) and Where the Wildflowers Grow (2022).
Watch: Natterjack Toads with Wildlife Cameraman Jack Perks
Join keen amphibian enthusiast, wildlife cameraman, author and podcaster Jack Perks to find out more about one of our most charismatic and threatened sand dune species in the UK; the natterjack toad.
World Sand Dune Day 2022 Gallery
World Sand Dune Day is celebrated annually by coastal communities and projects across the world, established by Dynamic Dunescapes and Sands of LIFE, two projects working to restore coastal sand dune systems.