From 2 to 6 September the Škocjan Caves Park organised a Summer school, in the framework of the projects ENGREEN 2 and E-NAT2CARE, with the aim to explore the Beka Landscape Park and its surrounding area.
The area is varied in relief and boasts various ecosystems, such as forest, grassland, water and cave, and we also explored villages. Participants were divided into groups for amphibians, reptiles, birds, beetles and botany. On the first day, we all went on an excursion to the Beka Landscape Park.
There we got to know the natural and historical features of the park and the surrounding area. We ended the excursion on the Italian side in village Draga, where we also visited the ice house, which was restored as part of the Engreen project.
On the other days, participants and their mentors diligently explored the area in groups. The amphibian group learned about different bodies of water, such as karst ponds and drinking troughs. They found different species of frogs and newts. The group for reptiles saw different species of snakes and lizzards. The bird team checked several different areas, most of the time they saw birds that belong to the forest generalists, they also saw many migratory birds. One day they went out into the night field and heard the hoot of the Eurasian eagle-owl. The beetle group learned about different sampling and determination techniques. They used different kinds of traps and random sampling was also used. Botanists recognized many characteristic plants of dry karst meadows, and spent some time defining habitat types.
On Tuesday evening, we listened to presentations of research and final assignments that have been made so far in the area of the Škocjan caves Park and the area of influence on the subject of amphibians.
We also devoted one day to ecosystem services and included the local population living in the vicinity of Beka landscape park in the research. On Thursday evening, all groups shared their progress and results. On the last day, we visited the Škocjan Caves.
The Summer school was implemented in collaboration with the University of Primorska - Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technology, Municipality of Hrpelje-Kozina, National Institute of Biology and Municipality of San Dorligo della Valle - Občina Dolina.
