Tag Archives: Black Country

Beacon to be lit on the Rowley Hills to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday

Tomorrow evening Sandwell will join hundreds of communities up and down the country when it lights a special beacon to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday.

People will be able to see the beacon from miles around when it is lit at 8.30pm on Thursday 21 April. Sandwell Mayor Councillor Barbara Price will officially light the borough’s beacon on the Rowley Hills, near East Avenue. The best view of the beacon will be from the Oldbury area (the actual site where the beacon is lit is not suitable for spectators).

The Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will light the principal beacon at Windsor Castle. It will be followed by the lighting of more than 1,000 beacons throughout the United Kingdom, Channel Islands, Isle of Man, UK overseas Territories and Commonwealth to celebrate the Queen’s landmark birthday.

The Army Cadet Force is taking special gas-fuelled beacons to the top of the four highest peaks in the UK, other beacons include Unst in the Shetland Islands, the most northerly beacon in Great Britain, and four beacons in the Virgin islands.

Beacons have previously been lit for:

The Queen’s Silver Jubilee – 1977
50th Anniversary of VE Day – 1995
Beacons for the Millennium – 1999
The Queen’s Golden Jubilee – 2002
The Trafalgar Weekend Beacons – 2005
The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee – 2012
75th Anniversary of VE Day – 2015

Welcome to new members, and upcoming events

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We’ve just about finished updating our membership system and would like to say a big WELCOME to all our new members! If you applied for membership in the past few months, we apologise that there has been a delay in processing your membership, but you should now start to receive email updates from us.

We have quite a few events happening this month and we hope you’ll be able to make it to a few:

Conservation volunteer day, View Point Open Space, Saturday 16th April 2016, 10:00am – 3:00pm. Join the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham & the Black Country for a fun day out meeting new people, helping the environment and learning new skills. We will be working to enhance the woodland plantations on site by clearing brambles, crown lifting the trees and under planting with native tree whips and woodland ground flora. Meet at the entrance to the site at the northern end of View Point; as there are very few parking spaces nearby we recommended that anyone coming by car should park out of View Point and walk to the meeting place. No need to book, just turn up!

Clean for the Queen, Massey’s Bank, East Avenue, Tividale, Saturday 23rd April, 10:00am – 1:00pm. Clean for The Queen is a campaign to clear up Britain in time for Her Majesty the Queen’s 90th birthday, which will be officially celebrated in June 2016. Join us for a litter pick to get Massey’s Bank looking spick and span! Click here for more information about the Clean for the Queen campaign; you can also contact Shane Allen for more information about this particular event on 07718 193629 or bigspringclean.sandwell@serco.com.

Conservation volunteer day, View Point Open Space, Sunday 24th April 2016, 10:00am – 3:00pm. Join the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham & the Black Country for a fun day out meeting new people, helping the environment and learning new skills. We will be working to enhance the woodland plantations on site by clearing brambles, crown lifting the trees and under planting with native tree whips and woodland ground flora. Meet at the entrance to the site at the northern end of View Point; as there are very few parking spaces nearby we recommended that anyone coming by car should park out of View Point and walk to the meeting place. No need to book, just turn up!

Dawn Chorus Event, Portway Hill, Saturday 30th April 2016, 6:30am. Join local bird expert Nick Horton who will be leading a dawn chorus walk, looking out in particular for the Rowley Hills’ resident raptors – Buzzard, Kestrel, Sparrowhawk and Peregrine, as well as many other species of interest. Be sure to dress sensibly (early mornings can be cold!) and bring binoculars if you have them. Meet at the cairn on the Wildlife Trust site on Portway Hill. No need to book.

Awards for All Easter success!

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The Wildlife Trust put on two very successful AFA (Awards for All) Lottery-funded events for us over the Easter week. On Wednesday Natalie Bellfield had a very good turn out for her Mothers and Toddlers walk from Oakham Library up onto View Point Open Space, where the children participated in a treasure hunt and various activities that the Wildlife Trust had set up. Afterwards, we continued our walk along the highest point of the site, admiring excellent views across to Cannock and Barr Beacon and beyond on what was turning into a sunny and pleasantly warm, early-spring day. Back at the library the children did some colouring, and prior to leaving, were all given Easter eggs. This was an excellent day that brought together the library, Wildlife Trust, Friends of Rowley Hills and many local people.

View Point Open Space AFA event 30th March 2016 (image © Mike Poulton)

On Thursday the weather was even better for our AFA event in Bury Hill Park.The spring sunshine was a bonus and we even saw an occasional Small Tortoiseshell butterfly on the wing. Throughout the day a steady stream of people visited our stall and at mid-day some of the attendees joined Mike for a circular walk around Portway Hill Open Space, taking in the Wildlife Trust cairn and geological exposure, before heading towards Wolverhampton Road and back into Bury Hill Park.

Many of the children took advantage of their visit to the park by making use of the various play apparatus that the park has to offer.
During the afternoon representatives from the Wildlife Trust and FORH scattered Harebell seeds across the Portway Hill site which they had collected last autumn thanks to FORH’s successful appeal to Sandwell Council to temporally cease mowing of the hillside while the Harebells were flowering and producing seed.

Bury Hill Park AFA event 31st March 2016 (image © Mike Poulton)

Lynn Poulton scattering Harebell seeds on the Wildlife Trust site – 31st March 2016 (image © Mike Poulton)

Family fun this Easter on the Rowley Hills

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We have plenty of fun family activities planned for you on the Rowley Hills over Easter!

Next Wednesday 30th March we have two events; first up is a Easter Mums & Toddlers walk with Sandwell Leisure Trust. Natalie Bellfield from Sandwell Leisure Trust will be leading a walk specially for mums and toddlers going from Oakham Library to View Point, before heading back to the library and ending with some refreshments. Our Vice Chair Mike Poulton will be accompanying the group and giving a short talk about the wildlife and views from the hillside. The Friends of Rowley Hills are also going to put on a display of Rowley Hills photographs in the library for this event.

Then from 11:00am until 3:00pm on the same day we will be up on View Point Open Space with the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham & the Black Country running lots of fun, FREE, family activities including arts and crafts, walks and talks and a treasure hunt.

On Thursday 31st March we will be in Bury Hill Park, 11:00am – 3:00pm, with the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham & the Black Country running lots of fun, FREE, family activities including arts and crafts, walks and talks and a treasure hunt. All of these events are completely free for anyone who wants to come, thanks to our funding from the Big Lottery Fund. You don’t need to book, just turn up! Take a look at the posters below for further info and location maps:

Tool training this Saturday!

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Portway Hill (image © Mike Poulton)

This Saturday we have another exciting event happening, made possible thanks to our Awards For All funding from the Big Lottery Fund. Tom Hartland-Smith from The Wildlife Trust for Birmingham & the Black Country will be on Portway Hill carrying out tool training – this will teach you all you need to know about use and maintenance of the tools we use for conservation on the Rowley Hills. We will meet on St Brades Close at 10:00 and the event runs until 12:00. There is a limited number of places available; please book your place at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/portway-hill-tool-training-maintenance-tickets-22690278233.

We look foward to seeing you there!

Forthcoming Rowley Hills events

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We’ve been busy arranging lots of exciting events over the coming months, thanks to our Awards For All Lottery funding. Coming up tomorrow we have another conservation volunteer day with the Wildlife Trust where we will be planting a new hedgerow, and on the 19th March the Wildlife Trust will be holding a tool training event, which will teach you all you need to know about use and maintenance of the tools we use for conservation on the Rowley Hills.

Looking further ahead, we have a Mums and Toddlers walk at Easter in partnership with Sandwell Leisure Trust, our Clean for the Queen litter pick in April, and a couple of guided wildlife walks in June at a peak time for butterfly activities on the hills.

Check out our Events page for the full details of all these events, and don’t forget to keep checking back as we’ll continue to add more events in the near future! You can also sign up to updates from this news feed – just click on ‘Follow’ at the bottom right-hand corner of our homepage (https://friendsofrowleyhills.org/) and enter your email address. You’ll receive an email every time we post some news here!

Clean for the Queen on the Rowley Hills

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Clean for The Queen is a campaign to clear up Britain in time for Her Majesty the Queen’s 90th birthday, which will be officially celebrated in June 2016. We are holding a litter pick in partnership with Serco and Keep Britain Tidy as part of Clean for the Queen; why not join us on Saturday 23rd April, 10:00am – 1:00pm to get Massey’s Bank looking spick and span! Click here for more information about the Clean for the Queen campaign; you can also contact Shane Allen for more information about this particular event on 07718 193629 or bigspringclean.sandwell@serco.com.

Special offer on Butterflies of the West Midlands book!

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A new book about the butterflies of the West Midlands will be launched later this spring; this is the first ever book about the West Midlands’ butterflies and includes a wealth of information about the species seen in the area, distribution maps, butterfly walks, gardening and photography tips. It even contains a guided walk of the Rowley Hills written by the Friends of Rowley Hills’ Vice-Chair Mike Poulton. It’s a must-have for butterfly fans!

The book can currently be pre-ordered at the special pre-publication price of £13.95 + £4.00 p&p; once published the price will increase to £18.95 + £4.00 p&p so take the chance to grab a bargain now! For more information and an order form, see below; you can also order online at http://www.naturebureau.co.uk/bookshop/.

Historic images of the Rowley Hills

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At one of our recent events, Jim Rippin, a local resident, showed us some photos he’d taken as a young boy in the 1950s of the Rowley Hills. The site has changed so much that it is hard to imagine it was the same area that we see today. He has kindly given his permission for us to reproduce a couple of them here, alongside another image from a book cover, taken in the 1980s. Our Vice Chair Mike Poulton took photos of the same areas from approximately the same vantage point to illustrate how much has changed.

We’ve also added these photos to our History page to build upon our record of the history of the Rowley Hills. If you have any old photos of the area, from any time, we would love to hear from you! We can easily scan or photograph images so don’t need to keep original photos, just loan them temporarily; we can also touch up scratches etc. if required so don’t worry if your photos are a bit battered! Potentially, we would like to put on an exhibition in the future of historic photos like these, depending on how many we are able to source, so please get in touch with us today if you have any old photos you’d be happy to show us. Thank you!

Earth Tongue fungi on the Rowley Hills

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Some more interesting fungi have been spotted on the Rowley Hills recently, and their appearance this late in the year is undoubtedly due to the unseasonably mild weather we’ve been having. These are Earth Tongues, which are important indicators of nutrient-poor grasslands of high value for nature. They normally appear during October and November, and from their appearance it’s obvious where their name comes from! There are several similar-looking species and the shape of this one suggests it is a Trichoglossum; it’s not possible to make a more accurate identification without a microscope.

Earth Tongue (Trichoglossum) (image © Mike Poulton)

Even at this time of year, nature still holds surprises – there is always something interesting to see! Click here to read a bit more about Earth Tongues.