Tag Archives: Wildlife Trust

More Awards for All successes!

Our recent Lottery-funded AFA (Awards for All) events have been a great success! Here’s a summary of what we’ve been up to:

On Thursday 7th April our AFA event involved planting 470 native Bluebells and 50 wild Daffodils in the woodland we have previously been working on at View Point. We also spread 250g of Red Campion seed throughout this block. In the westerly block with the path running through the middle we sowed 50g of Red Campion seed and planted about 30 native Bluebells ad hoc. We also spread 50g of Red Campion seed in the most easterly central woodland plantation block.

On the afternoon/evening of Thursday 14th April Tom and Doug from the Wildlife Trust organised a Spoon Carving event for local youth group “U-Choose Youth Project” on the Wildlife Trust site on Portway Hill. After a short guided tour of the site each of the group were given a block of wood to carve and instruction on the safe use of the carving knives. The group then set about carving their own wooden spoons. We received great feedback from their youth group leader David King who said “a really good day today on the hill….the kids loved it….we are definitely going to visit again….keep us posted with future things”.

: Spoon Carving AFA Event, Portway Hill, 14th April 2016

: Spoon Carving AFA Event, Portway Hill, 14th April 2016

: Spoon Carving AFA Event, Portway Hill, 14th April 2016

: Spoon Carving AFA Event, Portway Hill, 14th April 2016

On Saturday 16th April we had another event on View Point Open Space where 25 Hazel and 25 Field Maple were planted into the woodland block thinned previously, and Foxglove seed was sown mainly around the edge. We also spread Foxglove seeds around the path in the westerly block. 1kg of Yellow Rattle was scattered on the meadow block directly downhill from the thinned woodland. In addition a litter-pick was carried out and 2 bags of rubbish removed from site.

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!

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.

Wildlife round-up – October 2015

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Although summer is over and autumn is now well and truly with us, there are still plenty of fascinating flora and fauna to be seen in the Rowley Hills. Here’s a round-up of recent sightings; don’t forget, if you’ve seen something interesting, let us know!

Bird migration is continuing apace, and taking on an autumnal flavour, with the first Redwings of the season being spotted. This member of the thrush family breeds in northern Europe and migrates south in autumn, escaping the cold weather to spend the winter in the UK and other central and southern European countries. Other migrating species seen recently include Meadow and Tree Pipits, White and Yellow Wagtails, House Martin, Chaffinch, Siskin, Redpoll, Swallow, Spotted Flycatcher, Chiffchaff, Golden Plover and Cormorant. Many thanks as always to Ian Whitehouse for keeping us up to date with his Rowley Hills sightings!

Spotted Flycatcher (image © Ian Whitehouse)

Early morning on the Rowley Hills, a great time for vismigging (observing visible migration of birds) (image © Ian Whitehouse).

We’ve had more good news following Sandwell Council’s decision to delay cutting the grass on Bury Hill in response to our request. Not only has this allowed the Harebells there to finish flowering – enabling us to collect seed from them to sow elsewhere in the Rowley Hills – another scarce wildflower in Birmingham and the Black Country has been discovered in the same area which would probably never have come to light had the grass been cut as normal. The flower is Trailing Tormentil (Potentilla anglica); it is very difficult to identify as it hybridises with two other members of the Tormentil family, Creeping Cinquefoil (P. reptans) and Common Tormentil (P. erecta). The two hybrids and Trailing Tormentil all look very similar, having flowers with both 4 and 5 petals; however 2 experts have verified that it is Trailing Tormentil. The diagnostic feature confirming this is fully fertile flowers – hybrids are not fertile.

Trailing Tormentil (Potentilla anglica) (image © Mike Poulton)

Elsewhere on the hills Mike Poulton photographed a Broom Moth caterpillar feeding on Red Bartsia, and another new botanical record for the Wildlife Trust’s Portway Hill site was a large patch of Sneezewort, so named because its pungent smell supposedly causes sneezing.

Broom Moth caterpillar (Ceramica pisi) (image © Mike Poulton)

Sneezewort (Achillea ptarmica) (image © Mike Poulton)

Mike and Doug also found an enormous spider whilst working on the Wildlife Trust’s site, which turned out to be a Four Spotted Orb Weaver. This spider holds the record for the heaviest spider in Britain!

Four Spotted Orb Weaver (Araneus quadratus) (image © Mike Poulton)

It’s turning out to be a great fungi season too. These two species were photographed last week; Blackening Waxcap was near the Wildlife Trust’s Portway Hill site and Verdigris Agaric was on Massey’s Bank.

Blackening Waxcap (Hygrocybe nigrescens) (image © Mike Poulton)

Verdigris Agaric (Stropharia aeruginosa) (image © Mike Poulton)

Report from SandNats walk

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SandNats exploring the Rowley Hills (image © Mike Poulton)

On Saturday SandNats (Sandwell Valley Naturalists’ Club) held a guided walk on the Rowley Hills, concentrating on wildflowers and invertebrates. The weather was perfect – warm and sunny – giving optimum conditions for spotting insects, and the walk was a great success, with several rare insect species being recorded.

The group walked a circuit around the old Blue Rock Quarry. Although the height of the flowering season has now passed for many plants, there were still quite a few in flower including Burnet-saxifrage (Pimpinella saxifraga), Hare’s-foot Clover (Trifolium arvense), Red Bartsia (Odontites verna), Lucerne (Medicago sativa) and others. There were plenty of butterflies around, including a few Marbled Whites (Melanargia galathea), by now looking somewhat worn. As well as these we saw Large, Small and Essex Skippers, Large and Small Whites, Small Copper, Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown, Common Blue, Comma and Red Admiral.

Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus) (image © Jane Tavener)

Large Skipper (Ochlodes sylvanus) on Lucerne (Medicago sativa) (image © Jane Tavener)

Robin's Pincushion gall produced by the wasp Diplolepis rosae (image © Jane Tavener)

There was a noticeable passage of migrating Swifts heading south at one point, and quite a few House Martins feeding high overhead. We did particularly well for raptors, seeing Buzzard, Kestrel, Peregrine and Sparrowhawk. A pair of Ravens also flew overhead while we were looking around the Wildlife Trust’s viewpoint near the dolerite crags. Small songbirds were relatively quiet as expected for the time of year but we did see quite a few Goldfinches.

Six-belted Clearwing (Bembecia ichneumoniformis) (image © Jane Tavener)

The highlight of the day was the discovery of a Six-belted Clearwing moth (Bembecia ichneumoniformis) on the Wildlife Trust’s Portway Hill reserve. This unusual moth mimics hoverfly species with its black and yellow stripes and clear wings, and is patchily distributed throughout parts of the southern half of Britain. It’s a great find for the Rowley Hills and also shows that the management the Wildlife Trust are carrying out on their land is contributing positively to biodiversity.

Roesel's Bush-cricket (Metrioptera roeselii) (image © Jane Tavener)

Another highlight was a Roesel’s Bush-cricket (Metrioptera roeselii), a medium-sized cricket which has been expanding its range north over the past few decades.

After a few hours of enjoyable wandering, sharing of knowledge and great wildlife sightings, it was time to head back home for a late lunch!

The Rowley Hills 8th August 2015 (image © Jane Tavener)

Photos from Bumble Hole Family Fun Day

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We had a great time at the Bumble Hole Family Fun Day on Saturday, and signed up a few new members. If you’re interested in becoming a member just go to the Membership page to find out how. Here are a couple of photos of our stall at the Fun Day, ably run by Tony, Julie, Josie and Doug!

FORH at Bumble Hole Family Fun Day (image © Mike Poulton)