Wendy Tobitt from Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust previews the finale of the Oxford Festival of Nature

There’s only one place to be this Saturday! It’s the Wild Fair at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Take a selfie with a basking shark, handle live crocodiles (really!), find out why bees waggle their bottoms and ask expert scientists difficult questions. These are some of the wild attractions organised by the local Wildlife Trust with Festival partners the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Since the start of June the Wildlife Trust has run events across the city including wildlife walks at Wytham Woods, otter trails on the Cherwell and schoolchildren making bug hotels.

In the next few days people can explore Iffley Meadows on a Dawn Chorus Walk, discover the many varieties of small voles, shrews and mice in University Parks, and see the Dragon of Magdalen Wood, Headington where you can make dragon fire, pizzas and a den!

For wildlife gardening enthusiasts there’s a special open day on Sunday at Rosybee’s nursery near Wantage to show which plants are especially attractive for pollinating insects.

On Saturday 13 June the lawn in front of the Museum on Parks Road will be swarming with local nature and wildlife organisations including Oxford Urban Wildlife Group, Oxfordshire Beekeepers Association, Shotover Wildlife, Crocodiles of the World and the Zoobus.

Inside the Museum look out for more unusual exhibits such as inflatable marine wildlife, including a life-size basking shark, which will be virtually ‘rubbing shoulders’ with the Museum’s whale skeletons and other sea creatures.

‘Ask the scientist’ sessions will be going on throughout the day under the T. Rex, while fun story-telling based on the Museum’s exhibits will feed children’s curiosity.

See the best photographs taken on the Wildlife Trust’s nature reserves in this year’s Wildlife Photography Competition.

Oxford Mail:

They include this one (above) of a broad-bodied chaser dragonfly taken by 12-year-old Alex White from Appleton at the Trust’s Sutton Courtenay Environmental Education Centre in Didcot. Alex has won the under 12s category.

Winner of the My Wild Life category is Elaine Tuffery from Aston (top) of her daughter Georgia. ‘I Spy at the Hide’ was taken at the Wildlife Trust’s Chimney Meadows nature reserve. Among the special activities at the Wild Fair are birds of prey from Millett’s Farm, outdoor cooking workshop with Nature Effect, and a chance to help design and paint a mural of local wildlife with Movvers from Oxford.

Round-up of Festival events this week

During the second week of the Oxford Festival of Nature hundreds of schoolchildren made bug hotels for their schools, and volunteers new to practical conservation learned why scything helps to protect wild flowers and the insects that thrive on them.

Wildlife Geek Night at the Jericho Tavern and a Wildlife Pub Quiz at the Marsh Harrier in Temple Road, Cowley pulled in professional and amateur ecologists eager to share their knowledge of butterflies, birds and plants competitively!

Hundreds of people took part in the wildlife walks and talks, including a special visit to Wytham Woods with scientists who study wildlife in this woodland, and a bat walk at Shotover Country Park.

This is the second Oxford Festival of Nature organised by the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust in partnership with Oxford City Council and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. We’re already making plans for a bigger and better event in 2016, which will involve schools across the city and community groups with wildlife and nature projects.