This year's Kent Wildlife Conference was held on the 22nd October at the University of Kent Canterbury campus. The theme of this year's conference was The Role of Biodiversity and Natural History Recording in Rebuilding Biodiversity. Presentations topics included grassland creation, Local Wildlife Site management, monitoring with camera traps and supporting deadwood beetle communities. The Club would like to thank all the speakers and attendees for their contributions.

Thirteen field club members met up at Elmley national nature reserve on 29th July, in better weather than was forecast. The site was infested with brown-banded carder bumblebee (Bombus humilis), to the point where the common carder bumblebee (Bombus pascuorum) was actually rarer than all the other carder species of conservation concern! Golden dock was frequent on the ditches and dykes and the members enjoyed getting to know stinking goosefoot, visually if not aromatically.

Jan Hendey, an amazing naturalist, has sadly died after some time in a nursing home. She was the Bryology recorder for the county and a core member of Kent Field Club, Orpington Field Club and the British Bryological Society in the South East. Jan led numerous meetings and attended many more, where her knowledge and skill enabled the identification of even rare species and her friendly presence enhanced the atmosphere for all. A full obituary will be prepared for the new 'Kent Naturalist'.

Despite poor weather, seven Field Club members attended the meeting at Clapgate Spring in Faversham on 9th July. We investigated the spring itself, as well as two nearby ponds (one on the line of another small stream, the other more isolated). A range of freshwater plants was recorded, including three species of pond-weed Potamogeton, and invertebrate sampling revealed a wide range of taxa including oligochaetes, leeches, bugs, beetles and snails.

Seven of us got together to record plants in the chalk meadow on the top of the cliffs at Botany Bay, Kingsgate, Thanet. We created a long list of species but of particular interest were the pyramidal orchid, yellow rattle, broomrape, knapweeds (attracting bees and butterflies), areas of ladies bedstraw and kidney vetch. After lunch we went to the sand dunes below the cliffs that have formed there over the past 80 years. We deliberated over sand and sea couch grass  (mostly the former) and saw swathes of sea purge, sea holly, sea sandwort, sea spurge and clumps of marram grass. A variety of halophytes, ruderals, garden escapes etc. had colonised the slack behind the dunes adjacent to the cliffs. The day finished with a visit to the seashore where we recorded extensive 'meadows' of the non native wireweed (Sargassum muticum) and a swarm of the starfish Asterias rubens.