WILTSHIRE Wildlife Trust is calling on residents to help them mark National Meadows Day next month.

The event, dedicated to celebrating and protecting our vanishing wildflower meadows and the wealth of wildlife they support, will take place on Saturday, July 1. This year’s event will be the biggest yet, with over 100 events taking place across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and the Friends of Dance Common in Cricklade will be holding a free family fun day starting with the dawn chorus at 4.30am. Then from 10am – 2pm there will be guided walks, a bioblitz and children’s and mini-beasts trails.

National Meadows Day is the headline event of Save Our Magnificent Meadows, a partnership project transforming the fortunes of our vanishing wildflower meadows, grasslands and wildlife.

Claire Parton, Save Our Magnificent Meadows project manager, said: “Meadows, once a feature of every parish in Wiltshire, are now an increasingly fragile part of our national heritage but all is not lost. National Meadows Day is the perfect way to explore and enjoy the flowers and wildlife of Wiltshire’s magnificent meadows and understand their special place in our shared social and cultural history.

“Beyond being a quintessential sight of summer, meadows’ value to our wildlife cannot be overstated - a single healthy meadow can be home to over 80 species of wild flowers, such as cuckoo flower, yellow rattle, orchids, knapweed and scabious, compared to most modern agricultural pasture which typically supports under a dozen species.

"Just 100 years ago there would have been a meadow in every Wiltshire parish, supporting a way of life that had gone on for centuries. They provided grazing and hay for livestock, employment, and food and medicine for the parish and were part of a community’s cultural and social history. Today, just 3 per cent of the meadows that existed in the 1930s remain – that’s a loss of 7.5 million acres of wild flower grassland."