New Ferry Butterfly Park has had its most successful summer with 1,500 butterfly sightings and nearly 2,500 visitors.
Beneficial wildlife management is going to be
extended further thanks to money donated from Wirral Friends of the Earth and a
Voluntary and Community Action Wirral Grant. These funds went towards engaging
a contractor to strip an area of rubble, suckering plum and snowberry between
the park’s gates and the Bebington Aldi and for planting a boundary hedge
alongside this area.
Local volunteers, plus a party of students from
Liverpool John Moore University Conservation Society, planted 100 shrubs to
establish a species rich hedge for bees and butterflies.
The planted species included caterpillar food
plants: holly for holly blue butterflies, purging buckthorn for brimstone
butterflies, wild privet as a great nectar source for summer butterflies and
hawthorn for hedgerow robustness. New Ferry Butterfly Park now boasts over 400
metres of well-maintained wildlife rich hedgerow, which gives the park a
countryside feel. The first steps have been taken here, to transform this
derelict corner of New Ferry into a wildlife haven.
It is hoped to bring the rest of the area by the
new hedge into meadow management in the future, meanwhile a colourful patch of
cornfield annuals will be established in this disturbed area.
Paul Loughnane, Honorary Reserve Manager
The Beginning - 6th March 2013:
Volunteers cut larger suckering plum down and use a chipper to chip cut materials
Photo: Paul Loughnane
18th November 2013:
Scrubbed up area with suckering Plum regrowth and Snowberry
Photo: Hilary Ash
18th November 2013:
Digger in action removing roots of suckering Plum and Snowberry
Photo: Hilary Ash
Cleared and levelled area, exposed neighbours' fencing
Photo: Hilary Ash
8th December 2013:
Volunteers with planted hedgerow finishing off with the bark mulch produced at the park.
Photo: Paul Loughnane
8th December 2013:
Hard
days hedge planting as the light fades.
Photo: Martyna Chrzczon
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