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 other unique heath species! Special thanks to the staff from BT Accrington who came to assist! Lowland Heathland is a semi-natural habitat which requires intervention from humans and/or large animals to keep the soils nutrient poor and acidic. These conditions provide a unique habitat which benefits many wildflowers and pollinators. You can read more about the cultural and biological importance of heathland on the Wildlife Trust website.

Our very own TreeACTION project joined us again for a session on the site to plant extend our Alder Buckthorn hedgerow to attract the Brimstone Butterfly. You can read more about the Brimstone Butterfly in last months' post!

We also had another Saturday session at Pleck Meadow where we picked some litter and removed Broadleaved Dock. Dock can very easily dominate an area of grassland, reducing biodiversity. We are also preparing areas of ground for wildflower planting next month! We also had a look at the frog spawn in wetlands which is now hatching! You can read more about the frog spawn at Pleck Meadow here.

PROSPECTS set up the third monthly moth trap of 2024 up in Pleck Meadow. Now that spring has arrived we are getting a few more species

All 5 species are moths that have that have not been officially recorded on the site (Moth Atlas 2020.) All of the following moths are invaluable pollinators for flowers that bloom in early spring, a time when there are not a lot of other pollinators around. This means that they can also be food for early spring birds when food is scarce. Their larvae also have a wide variety of food plants, making them useful herbivores.

Clouded Drab (Orthosia incerta)
Common Quaker (Orthosia cerasi)
Small Quaker (Orthosia cruda)
Red Chestnut (Conistra ligula)
March (Alsophila aescularia) - Indicative of March! The females are flightless.

Project Officer, Robert Gabryszak, will be continuing to set up the trap every month to track the progress of moths throughout the year. Public sessions will start in May when the trap is expected to be more full, but we will be opening a trap on Saturday 6th April before our spring clean of Pleck Meadow!

To express your interest, contact him at robert.gabryszak@prospectsfoundation.org.uk.

At the start of March we resumed our bee and butterfly surveys! Although the butterflies still seem to be waking up, we have seen plenty of bees! Buff-tailed bumblebees have been the most common so far but there have also been sightings of Red-tailed & White-tailed. A couple Andrena mining bees have also been spotted, but they are more difficult to ID to the species level. Andrena mining bees are solitary bees that make nests all by themselves! Just like honey and bumblebees, they are important pollinators.

Project Officer, Robert Gabryszak, will be continuing to do bee and butterfly surveys every week to track the progress of pollinators throughout the year. Check out our events calendar to see when the next survey is!

To express your interest, contact him at robert.gabryszak@prospectsfoundation.org.uk.