A SERIES of free guided nature walks over Old Winchester Hill in the Meon Valley will be the centrepiece of celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of this National Nature Reserve.
Local wildlife experts will join English Nature's site managers to lead the walks on July 24-25, which focus on some of the reserve's more colourful and unusual plants and insects.
Old Winchester Hill was one of the first NNRs to be established after the Second World War.
Bob Lord, of English Nature, said: "Generations of Hampshire people have enjoyed this landscape. Dormice, badgers and deer live on the wooded slopes, whilst in the summer months there are huge numbers of insects and butterflies such as the chalkhill blue and Duke of Burgundy."
For a fresh look at these smaller creatures, local biologist Dr Richard Osmond will be on site with his Hi-Tech Wild-Trek mobile ecology lab on Saturday.
The unit is especially popular with children, who can use video equipment, microscopes and computers to produce instant digitised images and colour print-outs of insects and bugs collected on the day.
"We give children the low-down on low-life," said Dr Osmond, "and our large screen television display makes monsters out of minibeasts."
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