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 them, only a few 100 meters into the walk and we could already see them swooping overhead!
The walk was positively teeming with activity and everyone got to both hear and see our native bats in action!
Thank you to everyone who attended our walk, your presence made it the wonderful evening it was! Thank you also to Roger Cunliffe for sharing his incredible knowledge with us!
Activity funded by Lancashire County Council, Hyndburn Borough Council, and the Windfall Fund.
Spring is well underway at Peel Park and the Coppice LNR in April 2024!
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 we picked litter, removed Broadleaved Dock & Soft Rush, and planted wildflowers like Marsh Violet, Lesser Spearwort, & Meadowsweet. Amphibian activity was good as we have seen spawn from frogs and toads, as well as a pregnant Smooth Newt! We have also been removing Rosebay Willowherb & Purple Moor Grass from the area of heathland that suffered a burn in June 2023, and planting wildflowers like Sheep's Sorrel, Devil's-bit Scabious, and Heath Speedwell.
We also worked at the Northern Gateway entrance near to the Peel Park Car Park where we removed dock, planted wildflowers and sowed plenty of wildflower seeds!
We had huge help from primary schools in the area like Peel Park Primary School and Benjamin Hargreaves Primary School, who helped with wildflower planting all around Pleck Meadow! Thanks to them there will be tonnes of wildflowers for pollinators in the coming months and years.
Lastly, the long awaited Pleck Meadow Carved Bench has finally been installed after months of waiting for some dry weather! The talented local chainsaw artist, Rick Goodwin, has carved this beautiful bench from Larch which was felled on-site by Woody C.I.C. in Winter 2022/23. Please rest your feet and enjoy the views of the meadow & Accrington!
Volunteer Work in April & May.
Dock Removal at Pleck Meadow!
Removing Himalayan Balsam
Wildflower Planting with Benjamin Hargreaves Primary School!
Rosebay Willowherb Removal and Wildflower Planting
Pleck Meadow Carved Bench
Bees and butterflies in April/May
April marked the official start to this year's UKBMS surveys. It will be another month before we get huge amounts of butterflies - but we have had a few species on the site like Orange-tip, Peacock, Small Copper, Speckled Wood, and Small White. Some new bumblebees have been spotted like Early, Garden, and Heath Bumblebees.
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!
PROSPECTS set the fourth & fifth monthly moth traps of 2024 up in Pleck Meadow. Now that the weather is warming up we are getting a more in the trap.
We have found four species in our trap, Hebrew Character, Clouded Drab, Common Quaker, and Small Phoenix. Just like butterflies, moths are invaluable pollinators for flowers. Their larvae also have a wide variety of food plants, making them useful herbivores.
Project Officer, Robert Gabryszak, will be continuing to set up the trap every month to track the progress of moths throughout the year. There will a special event celebrating over a year of moth recording on Peel Park & the Coppice on 15th June 2024, 9am-12pm in near the Peel Park Play Area.
Our work at Peel Park & the Coppice LNR wouldn't be possible without the permission of its use by Hyndburn Borough Council and the funding from LEF, Lancashire Wildlife Trust, & Windfall Fund.
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 was used to support wildflowers like Viper's Bugloss, Kidney Vetch, Bird's-foot-trefoil, Greater Knapweed, Small Scabious and more calcareous loving plants which are important to pollinators.
Volunteers have already begun to plant wildflowers and sow seeds on the bank so that it will be ready to bloom in spring, providing support to butterflies after the incredibly harsh year that 2024 has been for them. Butterfly Conservation have officially declared a butterfly emergency, so they are going to need all the help they can get!
The next volunteer session will be Monday 30th September, we will be working on Pleck Meadow to continue improvements for the pollinators. Contact robert.gabryszak@prospectsfoundation.org.uk for more information.
1. Creating the outline for the bank
2. Digging up clay and burying top soil
3. Building up the bank with soil and clay
4. Capping the bank with limestone aggregate
5. Seeding the bank.
A big thank you to our funders for making this possible!
This project was possible due to our thanks to funding from Lancashire Wildlife Trust (Lancashire Environmental Fund & National Highways) and the Windfall Fund.
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 of short and slow-growing plants can thrive as a result, increasing biodiversity in the meadow as more kinds of plants means more kinds of pollinators!
In a natural ecosystem, plants are removed by herbivores which can spread the nutrients across a landscape as they migrate, creating a range of different habitats including areas of nutrient poor soil that can support wildflowers. In the UK, a majority of our native large herbivores are gone and the ones remaining have fragmented habitats which disrupts their migration. This means that the natural spread of nutrients can not occur, resulting in an accumulation of plant growth in an area that builds up over time, creating an area of high nutrient soil which allows plants like Creeping Thistle, Creeping Buttercup, docks, and Stinging Nettle to dominate.
Habitats like this can still be important for wildlife (E.g., Stinging Nettles act as the food plant for Comma, Peacock, Red Admiral and Small Tortoiseshell butterflies,) but since 98% of wildflower meadows in the UK have disappeared in the last century, it's vital we transform areas of high nutrient density into to spaces for a vast array of native wildflowers & pollinators to thrive.
So with a severe lack of grazing animals on hand, we settled with a tractor as the next best thing! The compact tractor we got was able to cut and remove a large area of the meadow over the course of a day. We have left areas of longer vegetation around the meadow to give small mammals and invertebrates areas to shelter over winter as well as provide cover for birds and deer.
For more information and to see what sort of species have been found in Pleck Meadow, check out our FAQ.
If you would like to get involved in meadow management on Peel Park & the Coppice LNR, then please email robert.gabryszak@prospectsfoundation.org.uk or call 01254 230348.
A huge thank you to the Lancashire Wildlife Trust, LEF, National Highways, and the Windfall Fund for making this project possible.
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.
If you have any questions about the management ongoing at Pleck Meadow, you can read more and look at some of the species we have recorded here! Furthermore, you can contact Project Officer, Robert Gabryszak, at robert.gabryszak@prospectsfoundation.org.uk.
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 clear back the verges on the Livingstone road entrance to the site to open it up more and improve visibility, as well as making the area look tidier. Hand tools like loppers and bow saws were then used to cut back vegetation overhanging on the fence.
Finally a litter pick was carried out along the entrance to help keen the area clean and tidy, we unfortunately did find quite a lot of litter this time!
Thank you to our wonderful volunteers who help us carry out this important work
As always, thank you to our funders at Lancashire County Council, Hyndburn Borough Council, and the Windfall Grant.
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 parameters came back as ‘Low’ which means they are in ‘Good’ ecological health!
Thank you to our volunteers who came along and helped us assess the quality of one of our beautiful waterways!
Activity funded by Lancashire County Council, Hyndburn Borough Council, and the Windfall Fund.
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 hand drill. These were chosen to minimise the cookies splitting. With the hole inserted into the cookies, key rings were attached followed by a firm stamping of the ‘EcoFest’ logo!
Thank you to our amazing volunteers who helped us prepare for the big day, we couldn’t have done it without you!
Activity funded by Lancashire County Council, Hyndburn Borough Council, and the Windfall Fund.
On Thursday 16th May we got lucky with some sunny weather as National Highways paid a visit to Peel Park & the Coppice LNR. National Highway have been funding the Network 4 Nature project across the UK, creating biodiverse habitats along our roads and highways in collaboration with The Wildlife Trust. This includes the Accrington Bypass (A56) which borders Peel Park.
The project has been funding Lancashire Wildlife Trust which has then in turn been funding PROSPECTS to help carry out the work with the help of volunteers in the Peel Park Pollinators Project.
The visit produced this fantastic video, highlighting the importance of de-fragmenting habitats to boost biodiversity.
For more information on the project or to get involved, contact Project Officer Robert Gabryszak at robert.gabryszak@prospectsfoundation.org.uk or 01254 230348 (ext. 208)
Stephen Hutchinson has joined PROSPECTS as our new Low Carbon Community Buildings Officer. Stephen will work with local community organisations to help them reduce their building’s carbon emissions and take action against climate change. Community groups will be supported to obtain an energy audit of their buildings, as well as apply for funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy measures. Stephen will also be running carbon literacy and energy efficiency training sessions with community groups. The project will run for 12 month and is funded by Electricity North West and the Windfall Fund.
We’re pleased to announce that Alice Pooley has joined the PROSPECTS team as our new Brookside Development Officer!
Following the purchase of the 87-acre Brookside site in Stanhill Village, Oswaldtwistle (also known as Bury Meadows), Hyndburn Borough Council has partnered with the PROSPECTS Foundation, Lancashire Wildlife Trust, Stanhill Village Community Association, the Ribble Rivers Trust and Proffitts CIC to transform the space into a beacon of biodiversity, habitat recovery, carbon capture and tangible climate action.
Alice will be managing the development phase of the project, which is set to run for the next 18 months and is funded by the National Lottery Climate Action Fund and the Windfall Fund. Each of the partners has a crucial role to play in this exciting project, but there will also be a strong volunteer component, so keep your eyes peeled for new and exciting volunteer opportunities coming soon!
Spring is here at Peel Park and the Coppice LNR in March 2024!
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.
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.
Volunteer Work in March.
Dock Removal at Pleck Meadow!
Before and after removing Silver Birch.
Thank you to BT Accrington Staff!
Silver Birch removal!
Hedgerow planting with the TreeACTION project!
Moths are marching in!
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!
Bees are waking up! (The butterflies are still asleep)
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!
April will be a busy time full of wildflower planting and invertebrate habitat creation every Monday & Thursday! We will be continuing our bee & butterfly surveys which are taking place every Tuesday.
For info on conservation work @Peel Park & the Coppice LNR, Contact Robert:
Our work at Peel Park & the Coppice LNR wouldn't be possible without the permission of its use by Hyndburn Borough Council and the funding from LEF, Lancashire Wildlife Trust, & Windfall Fund.
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 roots which can be quite extensive and sturdy. Volunteers used loppers and bows to first clear all of the above ground vegetation, which was followed by using spades to dig out the root ball in its entirety.
Afterwards, the collection of litter that had been picked over the course of many sessions was moved to a location for removal.
Activity funded by Lancashire County Council, Hyndburn Borough Council, and the Windfall Fund.
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, and invertebrates.
Thank you to our volunteers for helping us improve local biodiversity.
Activity funded by Lancashire County Council, Hyndburn Borough Council, and the Windfall Fund.
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 mammals. The hedgerow will be maintained in the future years to continually promote its growth.
In future years, the hedgerow will offer an opportunity for a hedge-laying activity.
Thank you to our volunteers for helping us improve local biodiversity and site security.
Activity funded by Lancashire County Council, Hyndburn Borough Council, and the Windfall Fund.
Brimming with excitement on Peel Park and the Coppice LNR in February 2024!
We have have been a lot busier on the Coppice this month thanks to the milder weather.
Brimstone Butterfly (photographed by Gemma McMullan)
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 team who volunteered their time to help us with the Alder Buckthorn and the leftover Hawthorn from last month. They even made the Lancashire Telegraph! A huge thank you to NLTG for all their hard work.
The Brimstone Butterfly is an unmistakable butterfly, with the males of the species sporting sulphur yellow scales that instantly brighten up the landscape in early spring. The females are a bit more modest, with their pale greenish-white wings, the average person may mistake them for a Large White or even a leaf! The butterfly is quite common down south but is becoming more common in the north of England. We are brimming with anticipation to see if the Brimstone will take to our new hedgerow and choose it to lay its eggs. The caterpillars can only feed on Alder Buckthorn & Buckthorn so they are essential to have if we hope to help the Brimstone population!
During the half term, we also held a litter pick walk from Arden Hall to Pleck Meadow where we collected 8 bags of litter! On the walk, we discovered some frog spawn in the new wetlands on Pleck Meadow, amazing news for this habitat. You can read more about the frog spawn at Pleck Meadow here.
And of course, we continued to clear scrub in the heathland to prevent woodland encroachment, ensuring that heath species like Heather and Bilberry have plenty of light and can continue to thrive. 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. We have also been busy removing dominant Purple Moor Grass to give heath species more room to grow, not an easy feat as the grass's roots form rock hard mats which are difficult to dig up!
Volunteer Work in February
Scrub clearing on the heathland!
8 bags of litter!
NLTG in front of the Holly & Hawthorn hedgerow.
Alder Buckthorn for the Brimstone Butterfly.
Alder Buckthorn hedgerow along Pleck Meadow!
Moths are warming up!
PROSPECTS set up the second monthly moth trap of 2024 up in Pleck Meadow and despite the cold weather we got 3 species! Most insects are not known to thrive in the winter time, however, there are a few moths like to stick around or emerge early before spring is underway.
We got a Satellite, Chestnut, and Dotted Border. It is the first time that Chestnut and Dotted Border have been officially recorded on the site. All of the following moths are invaluable pollinators for flowers that bloom from late autumn to early spring, a time when there are not a lot of other pollinators around. This means that they can also be food for winter birds when food is scarce. Their larvae also have a wide variety of food plants, making them useful herbivores.
Satellite (Eupsilia transversa) - Common - Fly from autumn to early spring. They are very easy to recognise from the two small dots that 'orbit' a larger dot on each of their forewing. The markings can be orange or white. Fascinatingly, the Satellite's larvae are known to be omnivorous! Once they have grown considerably, they will eat the larvae of other moth species that occupy the same plant as them.
Chestnut (Conistra vaccinii) - Common - Fly from autumn to early spring. They are small brown moths with varying patterns on their wings, but are easily distinguished by the time of year they fly and by the half kidney mark on their rounded forewing (although the half kidney mark can sometimes be absent.)
Dotted Border (Agriopis marginaria) - Common - Fly from early spring. Harder to distinguish from a distance, but on closer inspection the 'dotted border' of it's forewings make it unmistakeable. It can be confidently said that all the 4 Dotted Border we found are males as the female Dotted Border is flightless. It will wait on tree trunks during the early hours of the morning for a male to visit it, this will save her energy which she can put towards egg production instead!
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 16th March before our spring clean of Pleck Meadow!
March will be our final chance to clear scrub & encroaching trees on the heathland before bird-nesting season begins. We will also be starting our bee & butterfly surveys which will take place every Tuesday.
For info on conservation work @Peel Park & the Coppice LNR, Contact Robert:
Our work at Peel Park & the Coppice LNR wouldn't be possible without the permission of its use by Hyndburn Borough Council and the funding from LEF, Lancashire Wildlife Trust, & Windfall Fund.
It’s that time of year again when we start our Bee and Butterfly surveys at Peel Park & the Coppice LNR!
The walks will start on Tuesday 5th March 2024, and will take place every Tuesday @1pm (weather permitting) until September 2024. The transects start in Pleck Meadow and go around the whole site, where participants will count and ID every butterfly or bee they see. This data will then be submitted to UKBMS and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust respectively.
The surveys are open to all members of the public, whether you are a butterfly novice or an invertebrate expert. The walk around the site will help you stay fit and get in touch with nature!
Meeting point & Accessibility: Robert will be in the Peel Park Car Park next to the bowling green at the end of Peel Park Avenue, BB5 6UQ at 1pm. Look for Robert in his orange hi-vis! By 1:15pm, the group should arrive at the starting point for the transect, where attendees on foot are welcome to meet. This map details the meeting points as well shows the route taken. Some areas of the walk are not accessible for everyone, but there are alternate routes which individuals may take to avoid these.
The transect route for bee and butterfly surveys!
Date & Time: Every Tuesday @1pm. The survey is subject to weather conditions. Assume that if is below 10°C, there are wind gusts above 20mph, and/or it is raining, that the survey will not go ahead and will be done at another point in the week if feasible.
If you are interested in attending surveys throughout the year, would like more information, or would like to notified if/when a survey is not going ahead, get in touch with Robert:
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 are sent out which eventually grow into thin poles. Poles can be left for a desired number of years to create the desired girth, which can be utilised for a variety of functions from basket weaving, wattle weaving, or even building construction.
During our session, we were coppicing hazel stools around the woods. After felling, some of the product was used to create ‘dragon’s nests’ which are circular barriers erected around the stool to deter browsing animals, such as deer, from consuming the new shoots.
The product was also used to make repairs to the dead-hedge established at Huncoat East a few years ago as an outdoor learning area.
Thank you to our volunteers for helping us maintain this traditional skill and our wonderful outdoor learning area.
Activity funded by Lancashire County Council, Hyndburn Borough Council, and the Windfall Fund.
On Saturday 24th February 2024 the Whinney Hill Helpers were carrying out a litter pick across the woodland. An extensive amount of litter and fly-tipping was removed from the woodland, including the front bumper of a car. Around 5 bin bags worth of litter were also removed along with the fly-tipping.
Thank you to our volunteers for helping us keep our woodlands clean!
Funded by Lancashire County Council, Hyndburn Borough Council, and the Windfall Fund.
After the wetlands on Pleck Meadow were constructed last year, we all waited with baited breath to see whether any frogs, toads or newts would find them suitable enough to call home.
This week our anticipation was quenched when, with the help of some plucky, young, litter-picking volunteers, we spotted some eggs in two of the ponds!
During this time we especially ask that people do not let their dogs in any ponds as they can trample the spawn/tadpoles and also leech pesticides into the water from flea treatments.
