On Tuesday 29th October the Hyndburn’s Woodlands Volunteers were hard at work at Jubilee woodland continuing with the meadow management that has been going on for 3 years. This involves using scythes to cut as much of the grassy material as low to the ground as possible, the cuttings (arisings) are then raked off the […]
Friday 25th October 2024 – Fairy Door Making
On Friday 25th October The PROSPECTS Foundation held their first ‘Fairy Door Making’ activity at Accrington Cricket Club. Participants used natural material such as bark, berries, wood chippings and twigs to create their very own fairy doors and fairy houses, with accompanying furniture! Everyone crafted some spectacular creations that our mystical friends will no doubt […]
Tuesday 22nd October 2024 – Butterfly Glade Maintenance
On Tuesday 22nd October the Hyndburn’s Woodlands Volunteers were back at Whinney Hill woodland carrying out some maintenance work on the butterfly glade located at the top part of the woodland. The glade has a good number of pollinator-benefitting wildflower species, such as cowslip, Marsh mallow, and eyebright. Maintenance involves using scythes to cut the […]
Saturday 13th October 2024 – Fungi Walk
On Saturday 13th October, Hyndburn’s Woodlands Officer Brandon Cherry and Irene, of the Lancashire Wildlife Trust, held a fungi walk at Whinney Hill woodland! (Livingstone Road) The walk was very well attended, with 21 people turning out for the walk! Irene, a professional mycologist, strolled through the woods while attendees scouted for fungi. The attendees […]
Summer 2024 Overview at Peel Park & the Coppice LNR
Like the rest of the UK, we have been experiencing some odd weather, accompanied by some disappointingly low invertebrate numbers. But we are still working hard to improve the site for pollinators. Our summer started like many others do, tackling Himalayan Balsam! We had several sessions of balsam removal around Pleck Meadow to reduce its […]
Butterfly Emergency 2024
Throughout 2024, PROSPECTS has been performing pollinator surveys at Peel Park & the Coppice LNR as part of the Peel Park Pollinator’s project. A huge thank you to anyone who assisted with the surveys, especially during a very poor year for it. We’ll be submitting/analysing all the data over the next couple weeks, but we […]
Friday 27th September 2024 – Baxenden Bat Walk
On Friday 27th September 2024 The Hyndburn’s Woodlands project held their second bat walk of the year at Woodnook Vale LNR! Participants were led by Roger, the Batman, Cunliffe who took them for a light stroll through the vale, with detectors in hand, to search for our nocturnal friends! It didn’t take long to spot […]
Spring 2024 Overview at Peel Park & the Coppice LNR
Despite the temperamental weather in April, we still managed to get a lot done on Peel Park & the Coppice LNR. April is the perfect month for planting & seed sowing. We have been planting a variety of different native species to benefit pollinators. We have had a couple Saturday sessions at Pleck Meadow where […]
Butterfly Bank Installation
On the 17th & 18th September, a butterfly bank was constructed at Pleck Meadow. A butterfly bank is a raised bank made of low nutrient aggregate. This bank will be a perfect spot for basking invertebrates and will benefit a wide range of wildflowers which will be important for butterflies and other pollinators. Limestone aggregate […]
Pleck Meadow 2024 Annual Cut
On Monday 9th, September 2024, Pleck Meadow at Peel Park and the Coppice LNR had its 3rd annual cut! Annual cut & collects are an important part of wildflower meadow management as it reduces nutrients in the soil which overtime will ensure that vigourous grasses and invasive species do not become dominant. A wider variety […]
Pleck Meadow Grassland Condition Assessment 2024
Pleck Meadow received its third annual Grassland Condition Assessment on the 8th July, 2024. The results show that the “cut and collect” management is working as the grass sward and presence of negative indicator species has decreased significantly. Seed sowing and plug planting have also increased the number of species present on the meadow. Read […]
Tuesday 8th October 2024 – Site Maintenance
On Tuesday 8th October the Hyndburn’s Woodlands Volunteers were back at Whinney Hill carrying out some maintenance jobs in the area. Initially, we re-established the information board that had been torn down a few months prior. The information board can now be used to publicize events for the local area. We then used scythes to […]
Monday 10th June 2024 – Jubilee Meadow
On Monday 10th June the Hyndburn’s Woodlands Project engaged with the Great UK WaterBlitz. The Great UK WaterBlitz is a national citizen science scheme aimed at assessing how clean the UK waterways are. For the scheme, we measured the quality of two parameters, that of nitrates and phosphates. We are happy to report that both […]
Thursday 30th May 2024 – EcoFest Prep
On Thursday 30th May The Hyndburn’s Woodlands volunteers had a much drier session in The PROSPECTS Foundation’s tool store! Here we prepared ‘Wood Cookie Key-rings’ for our annual EcoFest celebration! This involved using a miter saw to first cut lengths of logs into small ‘cookies’. Cookies were then, very carefully, hand drilled using a corkscrew […]
March 2024 Overview at Peel Park & the Coppice LNR
Spring has brought with it the usual perks, bees, flowers, and milder – albeit still very wet – weather! March is the final month before nesting season when we can remove scrub on the heathland, so we spent a lot of time bringing down colonising Silver Birch for the benefit of Heather, Bilberry, Crowberry, and […]
Tuesday 26th March 2024 – Cotoneaster and Litter Picking
On Tuesday 26th March the Hyndburn’s Woodlands Volunteers were back at Whinney Hill woodland carrying out some INNS (Invasive Non-Native Species) management, in the form of removing Small-leaved Cotoneaster which had likely escaped from one of the neighboring allotments. Small-leaved Cotoneaster can be quite tricky to remove, it needs to be dug out with the […]
Tuesday 19th March 2024 – Hollins Hedgerow
On Tuesday 19th March the Hyndburn’s Woodlands Volunteers once again teemed up with the TreeACTION Project to plant a hedgerow on our sites. This time, we planted a mixed species hedgerow at the Hollins wood. This hedgerow will act as a natural barrier for the site, while providing habitat and forage for birds, small mammals, […]
Sunday 3rd March 2024 – Whinney Hill Hedgerow
On Sunday 3rd March 2024 the Hyndburn’s Woodlands Volunteers teamed up with the TreeACTION Project to plant a 60 metre long hedgerow bordering between the Whinney Hill entrance ginnel and the Cricket Club. We planted a Hawthorn hedgerow to act as a barrier for the cricket club, while providing winter forage for birds and small […]
February 2024 Overview at Peel Park & the Coppice LNR
We have have been a lot busier on the Coppice this month thanks to the milder weather. During February half term, our very own TreeACTION project hosted a session on the site to plant a new Alder Buckthorn hedgerow to attract the Brimstone Butterfly. We also had help from the North Lancs Training Group hospitality […]
Tuesday 27th February 2024- Coppicing and Dead-Hedge Repair
On Tuesday 27th February the Hyndburn’s Woodlands Volunteers were at Huncoat East carrying out some coppicing work. Coppicing is an ancient form of woodland management that dates back to at least the Neolithic period of the UK. Coppicing involves felling a tree back to it’s base to create a ‘stool’. From the stool, new shoots […]