Tag Archives: West Midlands

Family fun this Easter on the Rowley Hills

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!

: Edale from Bury Hill Park, 1956 (image © Jim Rippin).

: Edale from Bury Hill Park, 2015 (image © Mike Poulton).

: Rounds Green from Bury Hill Park, 1951 (image © Jim Rippin).

: Rounds Green from Bury Hill Park, 2015 (image © Mike Poulton).

: The photograph on the cover of this book was taken in the early 1980s from the Rowley Hills (© Heather Angel).

: The same view as on the cover of ‘In Search of the Wild Asparagus’, taken in 2015 (image © Mike Poulton).

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.

Fungal fiesta!

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There are some amazing fungi out on the Rowley Hills at the moment! These photos were taken by Mike Poulton last week. We’re not great on fungi identification so if you know what any of these are, please let us know. And if you’ve seen any interesting fungi, plants or other wildlife on the Rowley Hills recently, get in touch!

: Image © Mike Poulton

: This one is not a fungus, it’s actually a slime mould called ‘Dog’s Vomit Slime Mould’ (Mucilago crustacea) which ‘climbs’ along grass stems and eventually hardens into a solid mass (image © Mike Poulton)

Friends of Rowley Hills awarded £10,000 from the Big Lottery Fund!

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Fantastic news! We are very happy to be able to announce that we’ve been successful in securing a £10,000 Awards for All grant from the Big Lottery Fund. These grants fund a wide range of community projects aimed at developing skills, improving health, revitalising the local environment and enabling people to become more active citizens. Our application was overseen by the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham & the Black Country with whom we work closely; our thanks to them for their great assistance in helping us obtain this funding.

The Wildlife Trust will also be helping to deliver the majority of the activities paid for by the funding, over the next 12 months. Although yet to be finalised, the money is likely to be spent on activities such as guided walks and other events, training for our members so that we can deliver more future events, and supplies necessary for the upkeep of the Rowley Hills.

New waymarker posts on Portway Hill

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Great news – six waymarker posts have now been erected in various places across Portway Hill pointing out the official Public Rights of Way linking Portway with Bury Hill Park and the Wolverhampton Road. We are grateful to Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council and the Local Access Forum for making this possible.

FORH committee member Bob Duncan alongside one of the newly installed waymarker posts.

Friends of Rowley Hills committee member Bob Duncan alongside one of the newly installed waymarker posts.