Bristol Wildlife Festival
I spent all last weekend at the Bristol Wildlife Festival as part of Bristol ‘Big Green Week’. And what fun it was.
Bristol Wildlife Festival is a joint venture between Avon Wildlife Trust, The BBC, Bristol City Council, Bristol Zoo, the National Trust, University of Bristol and University of the West of England, defra, Wildlife and Wetlands Trust, Wildscreen and Natural England, all of whom together make up the Bristol Natural History Consortium.
It is the largest free wildlife festival in the world, held all around the Bristol watersides, and has the most wonderfully relaxed, fun atmosphere.
I was hired to read wildlife poetry – I was supposed to do this at set times, but it was so windy on the first day our tent blew away and no-one could hear anything, and on the next day without a tent it was much easier to read to people who came past. If they had a favourite type of animal, I read them a poem about that species or one near.
One man wanted a hedgehog poem – I only had a young children’s one, but he was very happy with it, and it turned out he was a hedgehog expert! I had another hedgehog expert happen along – a young lad who knew all about them. Another young lad knew everything there was to know about snails – except that they have four noses!
It was wonderful to read poems to people and amaze them with creatures they had no idea of before.
I also had a selection of puppets to engage my younger listeners – the snail who comes out of his shell was a big favourite with the boys, the girls (not all!) tended to prefer the hedgehog who rolled into a ball.
Talking about the pufferfish, above!
We also had a giant jigsaw with us, that has a poem on each side. It is always a hit with all ages!
And – some quite famous people came along and bought the book!
All in all we had a fabulous time, met some great people, had a lot of fun and laughter – and some yummy vegan food!
Click below to buy Animal Magic at best price!
Animal Magic: Poems on a Disappearing World
- Posted in: Animal Magic - the book
- Tagged: animals, art, Bristol Green Week, Green, jigsaw, music, nature, poetry, sustainability, Wildlife Festival
lizbrownlee - poet 
Looks like it went amazingly well! Well done 🙂 x
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Thank you! It was vey enjoyable. Well – Sunday was!
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The sun shone all day! It must be amazing actually to read your poems to passers-by, and how strange that you and I both wrote about hedgehogs today.
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Very spooky, Liz! The sun did shine all day, OH got sunburnt a bit. I was lent a big umbrella by a very nice man called Monty Halls.
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