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Archive for the ‘Heathland’ Category

Heathland, paths and Himalayan balsam

Posted in Heathland, Invasive species, Paths, tagged Cheshire East Rangers, Cheshire Wildlife Trust, City of Trees, Sale Water Park, Tegg's Nose Country Park on July 19, 2016| 1 Comment »

Well it’s been a while since we put out an update, but that doesn’t mean SACV hasn’t been busy! In the last month or two we have worked in the quarry area at Tegg’s Nose Country Park (Sunday 12th June), when a damp day didn’t stop us from getting lots of heathland management work done; done some path maintenance work at Sale Water Park (Sunday 26th June) for City of Trees, taking care not to destroy some of the banks of wildflowers; and worked with the Cheshire Wildlife Trust at Birch Farm Ponds (Sunday 10th July) tackling the invasive Himalayan balsam. Here’s hoping the rest of the summer continues in the same productive vein!

Volunteers at Tegg’s Nose

Volunteers at work at Sale Water Park

Widening the path at Sale Water Park

Himalayan balsam at Birch Farm Ponds

Himalayan balsam at Birch Farm Ponds – after clearing

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Encouraging butterflies at Tegg’s Nose

Posted in Heathland, tagged Cheshire East Rangers, Tegg's Nose Country Park on March 13, 2016|

The dark green fritillary has not been encountered at Tegg’s Nose Country Park, but has been seen a mile or two from the site. Volunteers from SACV and Butterfly Conservation were therefore out in lovely spring sunshine today to help with an experimental activity to encourage this butterfly to the site: the dark green fritillary is attracted by violets, so patches of the hillside were cleared of bracken litter to encourage the spread of violets from other parts of the site, particularly from further down the hill. It is not known how successful this will be, but is one in a series of activities that are likely to be attempted to attract the butterfly to Tegg’s Nose!

Getting started on the hillside

Volunteer at work

Volunteers at work

Cleared bracken litter

Volunteers at work

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Heathland in Finlow Hill Wood

Posted in Heathland, tagged Alderley Edge, National Trust on August 4, 2014|

Yesterday SACV volunteers were out in Finlow Hill Wood near Alderley Edge, giving the National Trust a hand with a project to open up areas of this woodland to allow it to revert to its former heathland state. We were helping with the clearance of trees which had been felled earlier in the year, and on this beautiful summer’s day it was very pleasing to see the parts of the site where heather and heathland species are re-appearing!