It’s been a wet and rainy autumn and you may have noticed that this has been fantastic for fungi! Here’s a gallery of recent fungi sightings from Portway Hill, with a couple of photos from the more recent cold snap too.
This Saturday (1st October), Top Church in Dudley are celebrating becoming an EcoChurch by hosting an Eco Fair to mark Great Big Green Week and the Season of Creation. The Friends of Rowley Hills will have a stall at the fair where we’ll be giving out copies of our new trail guide and chatting about the wonderful Rowley Hills to anyone who is interested!
The Eco Fair will also feature:
Hope to see some of you there!
We had very successful moth trapping event on Portway Hill last month, with 29 moth species recorded as well as 2 shield bugs – see below for the full list and some photos. Thank you to Richard Orton of Sandnats for organising the event and bringing along his moth traps, and to Dave and Wendy Yale at Portway Farm for giving us permission to use their field for the event.
| Wainscot Smudge |
| Pied Smudge |
| White-shouldered House Moth |
| Brown House Moth |
| Dingy Dowd |
| Light Brown Apple Moth |
| Common Yellow Conch |
| Mother-of-Pearl |
| Yellow Shell |
| Grey Pine Carpet |
| Phoenix |
| Common Marbled Carpet |
| Green Carpet |
| Double-striped Pug |
| Brimstone |
| Dusky Thorn |
| Spectacle |
| Copper Underwing agg. |
| Vine’s Rustic |
| Lunar Underwing |
| Centre-barred Sallow |
| Common Wainscot |
| Flame Shoulder |
| Large Yellow Underwing |
| Lesser Yellow Underwing |
| Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing |
| Square Spot Rustic |
| Setaceous Hebrew Character |
| Yponomeuta sp. |
| Hawthorn Shield bug |
| Red-legged Shield bug |
The Wildlife Trust have now restarted volunteer days on the Rowley Hills, taking all relevant precautions in light of the coronavirus pandemic. If you would like to attend a volunteer day below, you must contact Natalie Norton at the Wildlife Trust on natalie.n@bbcwildlife.org.uk to book onto the volunteer day prior to the day as volunteer numbers are currently limited to a group of 6. You can find out more about the procedures the Trust have put in place to keep everyone safe in the information on our Events page.
The GM2LF Big Local Partnership Red Carpet Awards Night at Oakham Evangelical Church to celebrate and recognise the talents and skills of local people on 23rd October was a great success. To FORH’s great surprise we were awarded a certificate in recognition of our work in enhancing and protecting the open spaces on the Rowley Hills, along with a cheque for £100! A lot of interest was shown in the display of the children’s artwork from their visit to the Portway Hill site in the summer, and FORH also received some very positive comments for the part we played and what we are trying to achieve.
On behalf of the FORH we would like to thank everyone who played a part in making the evening a success, and our special thanks to the GM2LF Big Local Partnership and the National Lottery for making events like this possible.
Join us for a Fungal Foray across Portway Hill this coming Sunday (27th October), 10:30am -1:30pm. The recent wet weather has brought out lots of colourful fungi in the hills and local fungi expert Lukas Large will be helping us to identify them. Meet at the entrance to Bury Hill Park on the A4123 Wolverhampton Road (grid ref. SO 97834 89474). We advise all those attending to wear sturdy footwear and outdoor clothing appropriate for the weather. Participants will need to be moderately fit as the walk involves some steep hills.
Clustered Brittlestem (Psathyrella multipedata) (image © Andrew Cook)
We’ve just added our autumn volunteer days, plus an exciting Red Carpet Awards Night from the Grace Mary to Lion Farm (GM2LF) Big Local Partnership, to the Events page of our website. All the details are also below:
The small mammal-trapping event on Portway Hill a couple of weekends ago went really well despite us only catching one Wood Mouse on this occasion. Everyone who attended was given the opportunity to set a trap and a total of 12 Sherman traps and 3 Longworth traps were placed in the vegetation along the track through the old quarry and on the Wildlife Trust site. In each trap we placed a handful of sheep’s wool for bedding, and baited the traps with a mix of seed, cucumber, castors, lettuce and a small piece of cheese. The location of each trap was marked so that when we returned the next morning none of the traps were missed. They were then left in place overnight.
At 8am on the Sunday a group of 10 people showed up. Our initial disappointment at not catching anything in the first few traps turned to joy when a trap was retrieved containing a Wood Mouse in pristine condition. We carefully transferred the mouse into a small, transparent lidded bucket which was held up so that everyone could get a good look and take photographs. The mouse obliged by sitting there eating seed that had been transferred from the trap into the bucket with him. Although the bait was missing from two of the other traps on this occasion the trap-doors had failed to close.
After safely collecting up all of the traps we headed up the hillside in the direction of the radio masts to look for signs of mammal activity beneath some onduline roofing sheets that had been put down earlier in the year in the hope that any reptiles on the site might find refuge beneath them. No small mammals were detected beneath any of them but several little woven-grass nests constructed by voles were found.
Of the other wildlife we saw over the weekend the biggest surprise was a very late-in-the-season Speckled Wood butterfly, seen on the Saturday flying across the Wildlife Trust land. Buzzard, Kestrel and Sparrowhawk were seen overhead, and despite it being so late in the year, many of the hillside’s wild flowers were still in bloom, including Dog Rose, Yarrow, Burnet Saxifrage, Groundsel, Oxford Ragwort, Common Ragwort, Bush Vetch, Common Cat’s-ear, Tall Mouse-ear Hawkweed, Oxeye Daisy, Common Toadflax, Shepherd’s-purse, Smooth Sow-thistle, Red Campion, Red Clover, Black Knapweed and Weld. The exceptionally dry June and July followed by a mild autumn may have had something to do with this.
There has also been a change to the dates of the Wildlife Trust’s volunteer days in December – all the most up to date information is on our Events page so make sure you check there before heading out!
Here are a few photos from the mammal trapping event, with thanks to Andy Beaton for taking these.
Later this month the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham & the Black Country will be holding the Rowley Hills’ very first mammal trapping event! All the details are below and also on our Events page.
Mammal Trapping – 2-part event, Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th November 2018. Help us find out more about the small mammals that call the Rowley Hills home! Join the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham & the Black Country at Portway Hill on Saturday 17th November, 3:00pm – 4:30pm to help set out traps to catch small mammals overnight. The traps don’t harm the animals and have plenty of food in them to lure the animals in and keep them well fed while they await their release. Then the next morning on Sunday 18th November, 8:00am – 10:00am, join us again to help open the traps and see what we’ve found. This could include creatures such as Wood Mouse, Bank Vole, and Common Shrew. Meet on St Brades Close; ensure you are dressed appropriately for the forecast weather conditions, and wear sturdy footwear. Booking is essential, please email tomh@bbcwildlife.org.uk to book your places. See also https://www.bbcwildlife.org.uk/events/2018-11-17-mammal-trapping-part-1-portway-hill and https://www.bbcwildlife.org.uk/events/2018-11-18-mammal-trapping-part-2-portway-hill for more info.
Bank Vole (image © Hanna Knutsson via Creative Commons)
Friends of Rowley Hills 