London 2012 has meant there have been many fantastic races this summer, but not all of them took place in the Olympic stadium. This summer in Newtownabbey, the race has been on to see how many butterflies, moths and all things wild we can find in our gardens and parks.

Newtownabbey Borough Council has been running fun, free activities as part of the ‘Biodiversity Games’ project (funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund) which aims to encourage people to record the local wildlife on their doorstep. The opportunities to get involved in this project in Newtownabbey have been diverse, exciting and lots of fun!

A Nature Trail kicked off in May in Loughshore Park and there is still time to take part. Leave your entries at the Barista Café (Loughshore) and follow the trail of local wildlife facts! Mossley Park also was involved in the Biodiversity Games with wildflowers being planted to entice flying insects such as butterflies and bees and over 30 families attended the fast paced ‘Bug Run’ at Lilian Bland Park where they hunted for creepy crawlies.

Soggy feet were all part of the fun as Fairview Primary School went to Six Mile Water at Ballyclare to investigate and record the invertebrates lurking in the river. The children were able to judge the quality of the freshwater by investigating what they found! The recording didn’t stop here though as the 1^st Whitehouse Scout Group had an overnight camp on Carnmoney Hill to investigate what goes bump in the night! Moths, bats and frogs were sighted as well as badger and fox footprints.

Lindsay Matthews, Biodiversity Officer at Newtownabbey Borough Council says:

 "It was fantastic that lots of people from all over Newtownabbey got involved in the Biodiversity Games this summer! All things wild were recorded and hopefully everyone involved will have had fun and learnt a bit about their local wildlife!"