Day of Nature

Day of Nature

22 September | 10am – 5pm

Discover the incredible nature on our estate with lots of free activities! Join Bath Nats for a moth event and nature walk, meet our beekeeper and have a go at sun printing. Learn more about our gardens on a guided tour and explore the new woodland walk. Families are also sure to love our wildlife spotting activities and creative play in the Stables.

Tickets

All activities are included in general admission (members go free). Please book your space on talks and tours in advance as spaces are limited.

Schedule of activities

All day

• Family nature spotting activity sheet to take around the gardens, parkland and woodland walk
• Nature-themed creative activities for kids in the Stables

10–11am
Bath Nats moth event – see beautiful moths that live in the gardens close up

10.30am–12.30pm
Sun printing with visual artist Sophie Sherwood – try your hand at this fun print technique

10.30am
Garden tour – book tickets

11am–1pm
Bath Nats walk – join a nature walk with expert guides

11.30am
Garden tour – book tickets

12.30pm
Bee talk with our beekeeper – book tickets

1.30pm
Garden tour – book tickets

1.30am–3.30pm
Sun printing with visual artist Sophie Sherwood – try your hand at this fun print technique

2.30pm
Bee talk with our beekeeper – book tickets

3.30pm
Garden tour – book tickets

About the nature across our site

Did you know that the estate where the American Museum & Gardens calls home is also home to a stunning array of wildlife? From buzzards, red kites, tawny owls, greater and lesser spotted woodpeckers, and green woodpeckers, to marsh tits, blackcaps, chiffchaffs, swallows, stock doves, greenfinches, nuthatches, goldcrests, treecreepers, sparrows, blackbirds and robins – birds thrive across the site.

Within acres of formal gardens and wildflower meadows, butterflies are abundant, with sightings of marbled white, ringlet, meadow brown, small skipper and a silver washed fritillary, as well as other beautiful pollinators such as the hummingbird hawkmoth. We know that butterflies of the night – moths – are here in their hundreds, with 125 species recorded by Bath Nats in 2022. Species include the colourful elephant hawk moth, dark spectacle, scarce silver lines, bloomer’s rivulet, and Jersey tiger.

Look out for ladybirds throughout the gardens, beautiful wasp spiders (harmless) in the daylilies, newts in the grotto pool and dragonflies in the Mount Vernon pond.

Thousands of long-flowering plants, trees and shrubs give our resident honeybees (and lots of other bee species) nectar and pollen across the seasons. You can see the honeybee hives in the parkland. Bats are a protected species on the estate, where there is priority hibernation, mating and roosting habitat for lesser horseshoe, greater horseshoe and common pipistrelle bats. Muntjac deer and roe deer roam the woodland, where badgers have also settled.

In recent times, much work had been done to increase the biodiversity and range of habitats on the estate. An active woodland management plan, a mid-level stewardship agreement of the parkland and the use of organic principles in the gardens all encourage wildlife communities and biodiversity to flourish. For example, conservation grazing by sheep and cattle allows different wildflowers to flower and set seed each year. This provides pollen and nectar for invertebrates, which in turn increases invertebrate food available for birds. Learn more about environmental sustainability at the American Museum & Gardens.