Up Coming Events

Welcome to Friends of the Fowey Estuary events calendar.

Listed below are events over the next few months. There are further events in the calendar which will be added here later in the year, so keep an eye open for new additions.

Everyone is welcome to attend our events which are held all around Fowey Estuary. Events range from walks and talks to working parties and evening get togethers.

Events are FREE to Friends of the Fowey Estuary members and £2.50 to non-members, unless otherwise stated.

Field trips – please bring appropriate footwear, clothing, waterproofs, a packed lunch or money. for a pub meal. Children under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult.

Past Events

Events held by Friends of the Fowey Estuary in the last few months are described below

Source of the Fowey Walk

FoFE organised a walk to the source of the River Fowey led by Jane our ex-Chair. Ten of us set out from near Bowithick and very quickly the botanists amongst us started taking note of the amazing variety of plant life including the sundew.

These carnivorous plants have a sticky ‘dew’ covered tendrils that tempt unsuspecting insects as prey. We had sheep, cows and horses for company all roaming free and as Brown Willy came into view, we identified the ‘puddle’ that is the source of the Fowey, although there was some debate as to which small spring was the actual source. After a satisfying lunch sat around on rocks we started back and came across the old dam that fed water for the tin streaming activity.

Jane enlightened us that Henry VIII was the first environmentalist in preventing the river silting up because he wanted to keep Lostwithiel as his main port for exporting tin. Spotting a leech in a small pool was considered by some to be the spot of the day when we pulled in for a drink at the Rising Sun on the way home.

FoFE/Encounter Cornwall Joint Estuary Clean-up

 

FoFE had planned a kayak trip this year as part of our events list and then Clair from Encounter Cornwall contacted us to say that Paddle UK were organising a ‘big paddle clean up’ across many waterways and were providing bags and kits to help with these clean-ups and thought it would be good to join forces with FoFE volunteers.

What a fgreat un day on the water it turned out to be. Volunteers from the Friends of Fowey Estuary joined with some of Encounter Cornwalla amazing Encounter Club to tackle the gorgeous upper Fowey Estuary.

There were plenty of laughs, some sneaky bits of rubbish rescued and then Clair had organised with Nick at the Fishermans a deal on his summer buffet, so off for a well-earned drink and the great buffet.

 This was the first and therefore pilot event and Clair promised to repeat it again next year with a wider publication.

Spider Survey and Riverside walk

 

On Saturday 26th April we had a ‘Spider survey and riverside walk’ at Shirehall Moor led by Ty Berry, who is the Cornwall County Recorder for Spider Recording Scheme and Cornwall Area Organiser for the British Arachnological Society.  25 of us were absolutely captivated by Ty’s enthusiasm and knowledge and he does this as a hobby!

He was able to identify the smallest you could hardly see to females with eggs in a world where there are nearly 700 different species in the UK, including jumping and spitting, the money spider has hundreds of species alone.  Some subdue their prey with a venom and when they spin their webs, they do it with a substance that insects stick to but they don’t.

Pollinator Talk & Bug House Building Workshop

Joint event with Golant Heritage Group

Saturday 22 March

In conjunction with Golant Heritage Group we held two events on March 22nd.  In the morning, we were treated to a talk on Pollinators by Toby Davies the wildlife coordinator at Heligan whose great, great grandfather also worked at Heligan.  Toby, who has a degree in Conservation and Countryside Management talked us through the different pollinator insects, including bees, wasps, bats, flies, butterflies and hoverflies we have and their important work using nectar to pollinate plants which over 35% of global food crops depend on.  Unfortunately, they are in steep decline caused by pesticides, intensive farming, hedgerow removal and habitat fragmentation. 

At Heligan they have created a wildflower meadow where they can harvest the seeds, they also have what they hope will be a Guinness world record for the biggest bug-hotel in the world. 

In the afternoon there was the slight air of a year 7 Design and Technology class when, fired up by the morning talk, 16 enthusiastic ‘woodworkers’ sat down in Golant Village Hall under the supervision of Peter Edwards to build a Bug Hotel.

We were all awestruck by the size and professional look of the finished example that was our aim to make and by how comparatively easy Peter had made it by issuing us all with a pre-cut kit, hook, screws and all!

Within the hour, everyone had produced a piece of fine accommodation ready for beetles, solitary bees, ladybirds, spiders and more. Peter personally provided the many, many hundreds of chopped bamboo bits that went into the accommodation – a dedicated and mighty tedious task.

A brilliant and productive afternoon, only made possible by the amount of preparation Peter put into it and his endless patience. Toby was impressed enough to take a kit back to Heligan!

Ten years of Seals in St Austell Bay

Wednesday 26th February 2025

We had a very interesting talk by Rob Wells on ‘ten years of Seals in St Austell Bay’ at Gallants Sailing Club in Fowey. Rob also had signed copies of his book ‘Are you my Mum’. 

Rob is an avid seal spotter and explained how by their individual markings each seal could be identified and those fitted with tracking devices showed their wide range of movements around the Cornish and sometimes Welsh coasts.  The big message of the evening was to observe them from a distance even if you are in a kayak and especially if you are in a motorboat.  Some of the seals in Robs photos clearly had propellor marks across their backs.

We also need to be sure to take we take home our rubbish from the beach and a little bit of beach cleaning each time we visit will stop the seals becoming entangled in our rubbish or discarded fishing nets.