Throughout September the Hyndburn’s Woodlands project has been carrying out extensive work on the wildflower meadows managed through the project.
Meadows managed include the two meadows located in Whinney Hill woodland (the butterfly glade at the tops, and the meadow adjacent to the pond), and jubilee meadow.
For Jubilee, we rehired our expert tractor driver who managed to cut jubilee in a couple of hours, this would have normally taken staff and volunteers 2-3 volunteer days to do. Yellow-rattle was again sown into the meadow, but in much larger quantities. This Summer (2025), we saw quite a few large clumps of Yellow-rattle from the previous seasons sowing (The first major success in establishing a wildlife meadow at Jubilee). Yellow-rattle is an extremely useful plant in wildflower meadow creation, as it parasitises grass, reducing its overall abundance, which in turn is good for wildflowers, as there is less competition for them. Despite nearly 4 years of grassland management at Jubilee, the grass is still quite dense, likely due to the previous dominant land use (cow grazing), which has left the area very fertile.
The butterfly glade located at the top of Whinney Hill, on the other hand, is very fine and sparse (Very handy for scything!). This is due to a combination of previous land use (previously a tip) and continual management through the Hyndburn’s Butterfly Project (and later, the Hyndburn’s Woodlands Project). This year around 15 wildflowers were recorded onsite, a number we are quite proud of, but would love to see increase. To that end, we have sown more Yellow-rattle, wildflower seeds, and planted wildflower bulbs such as Ramsons (Wild garlic) and Wood Anemone. We are hoping to plant UK native Bluebells too (when the bulbs are back in stock!). We have also cut further into the periphery than previous years, in an attempt to extend the glades overall size.
The wildflower meadow located adjacent to the Whinney Hill pond had a major highlight this year, with Common blue butterflies being recorded onsite (both male and female). Management is thus being aimed at increasing their numbers via targeted scything and seed sowing. This involves retaining as much Birds-foot trefoil as possible (as this is the Common blue’s host plant). The meadow here is quite dense so the scything does very much take its toll, but we managed to get it all cut and raked off (aside from patches of Trefoil).
Thank you to all our incredible volunteers who help us with these tasks, it is a lot of effort (and perhaps a touch therapeutic), but the pollinators of Hyndburn will thank you in future generations.
As always, thank you to the funders of the project (Lancashire County Council, Hyndburn Borough Council, and the Windfall Fund) for making all of this possible.
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