My feeling that summer has passed its peak usually kicks in when we have had our annual Heathlands of Heswall walk - on Sunday 11 August this year. The common heather was looking near its purple best along with bright yellow of the Western Gorse.
In June, I was relieved to see that our two precious sprigs of Bell Heather (Erica) had survived trampling for another year. They are just beside an unofficial path used by naughty visitors hoping for an improved view. I have their GPS coordinates. Erica blooms in June/early July and is a deeper purple. The photo below shows our two sprigs of Bell Heather and a shot taken the same day, of Common Heather which was still at its white bloom stage. It is strange that Erica is so plentiful in the rest of the Heswall Dales SSSI in but scarce in Cleaver.
This year we will be doing one of our triannual ‘rapid assessments’ of the heathland. This is where, led by our botanically-expert colleagues, we perform 5 fixed transects from NE to SW. Every 10 metres we look closely at a 1m square and record all the plant species we see and classify its rarity and growth status. Is it common or otherwise and, for example for heather, is it pioneer, mature or dying? The outcome informs our management plans. This is another example of the valuable services carried out by the recorder groups associated with Wirral Wildlife.
As reported in my Spring Newsletter, butterfly sightings, particularly of whites, got off to a rather slow start in 2019. I am now pleased to report that the next broods of whites have been much more prolific. Also abundant were Meadow Browns in July. While walking on Heswall Fields one day, I estimated around 1000 of these per hectare. I did this by counting in randomly chosen 10m by 10m squares. So, perhaps we had around 4000 Meadow Browns on the wing there on that day? I returned the next day to find similar numbers. More recently, we have had a wonderful influx of Painted Ladies. These make good photographic subjects while they feed on knapweed and thistles. The Meadow Browns have now been replaced by Gatekeepers, also in good numbers.
The butterflies shown above are, clockwise from the top left: Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper, Painted Lady (x2), Small White and Peacock. Note the double white spot on the Gatekeeper. The underside of the Peacock is in stark contrast to the garish upper side. As it zips past you get an impression of the black which helps you identify it in flight.
Talking of photographs, a local photographer Robin Rowe has been asked by the Wildlife Trust to help provide some stock photos of our reserves. He has already made a couple of visits to Cleaver and you can see some of his excellent work at
The insect above, resting on Western Gorse, looks like a Meadow Grasshopper but you may know better.
Cleaver is becoming known as an interesting place for entomologists. Tony Parker from the World Museum in Liverpool has made several visits this summer with various groups. These recorders will be reporting all their observations to RECORD so we hope to get some kind of site report at the end of the year.
On the wildflower front – the Oxeye Daisies in the ex-carpark area were really good again this year and well-used by the insects, as was the Rosebay Willowherb. The latter has several informal names deriving from where it is found and how it grows such as fireweed and bomb weed. I have also heard it said that as the ‘summer weed’ you can tell what month it is by looking at how far up the stem the flowering has taken place. Look at the photo (above left) where a bee is sampling the last of the August flowering. The other photo (above right top) shows a stem which has not developed quite that far.
I am still seeing and hearing a few birds about the reserve. Some are moulting and so keeping their heads down. Others, such as Swifts and Swallows are feeding up prior to returning south. There seem to be plenty of insects over the heathland. A few Chiffchaffs are still hanging around. There is one juvenile who has been calling endlessly. I imagine him hoping in vain to be fed by a long-departed adult. As further evidence of the seasonal shifts, I offer you this recent sunset photo (below) and invite you to note that the setting sun is now over Liverpool Bay rather than, as shown in the winter newsletter, over the Clwyds.
Things are moving again on the heathland restoration project. Fiona Megarrell, the Trust’s new Living Landscape Officer (North) has been busy organising new quotes from contractors. The plan is to expand the area which can be properly classified as heathland in accordance with the wishes of Natural England. We have had positive indications from soil-sampling that this will be feasible if we scrape off the surface enriched soil and re-seed with heather. We have identified a scrub area in the SW corner of the reserve (to the left of the lower picture) where the soil can be deposited without doing obvious damage to valuable fauna and flora. This will cost a bit of money. I am pleased to say that the Wirral Wildlife group of the Trust has asked that £1000 of the money they have recently raised for the Trust is used to help with this.
Autumn and winter work parties on the first Sunday of each month will be restarting on September 1. Among the jobs on the menu will be a little bit of path stoning, cutting back some key access paths and clearing out bird boxes. For the latter, we first have to find them!
Finally, spot the difference: this shot of the entrance to Cleaver was taken this August. The one used in the last couple of newsletters was taken in February before the growth restarted.
Alan Irving
Volunteer Reserve Warden for CWT
Cleaver Heath
August 2019
