Butterfly Park Open Day

Last Sunday New Ferry Butterfly Park opened for the summer. Despite a chilly day with no butterflies flying, we had nearly 400 visitors and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

The art installations are staying for the summer (indeed, there will be more of Carol's engravings on perspex as the season progresses), so do come any Sunday afternoon to visit.

More pictures from the day can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30661871@N03/sets/72157623983850284/

And for further details about the park, see our web site:

http://www.wirralwildlife.co.uk/butterfly_park.html

Thanks to Richard Ash, John Gill and Jan Peddie for sharing their photographs.

Woodland Walk

Thank you to Paul for taking us on a guided tour of Tom’s Paddock, Foxes Wood and Thornton Wood last Saturday. The weather was lovely and 15 people, including two welcome visitors from CWT North group, enjoyed the afternoon. The photographs give you some idea of the plants we saw but we also spotted 4 species of butterfly and heard black cap and chiff chaff singing.

The hedge laid at the edge of Tom's Paddock...


Foxes Wood and the Clatter Brook...


An impressively twisty old oak tree in Foxes Wood...


Pink purslane...


Wood Sorrel...


A clump of Kingcups...


An unfurling fern...


The pond in Thornton Wood...

Butterfly Park springs into action

Sunday May 2nd 2010 sees the Grand Opening of New Ferry Butterfly Park for the Summer of 2010. Artist in Residence Carol Ramsay has curated an Art and Sculpture Trail with her own work and also featuring work by artists Karon McGunigall and Hayley Parfitt, as well as a joint installation by Emma Kemp and Chris Colville. The event will take place from 11am to 4pm.

Amongst other things, visitors will be able to see an interactive percussion instrument, multi-storey insect habitats and a range of hanging botanical illustrations to help inform their visit. Children will be invited to help cover the park’s new (t)wigwam with found objects from the park itself. The Day will include a series of art workshops and woodland craft demonstrations, tours of the park, nature walks, art and craft sales, tombola, face painting and a BBQ. Entry is free and all proceeds from donations and sales will be in aid of New Ferry Butterfly Park.

Carol Ramsay has a blog describing her work at the Butterfly Park as Artist In Residence:
www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/614513

How to make a bat box

If you came to Nic Harding's talk about bats last night you will agree it was most interesting and entertaining - and will have enjoyed meeting Bert the Pipistrelle bat.

Some people were interested in making a bat box so here are some instructions you can print off (right click on the image and save it to your computer first).



Don't forget that the wood must not have any preservative or varnish on it as this will poison the bats that use it. Put it about 9 feet above the ground and wait for the bats to arrive.

Don't forget that the Wirral Ranger Service holds guided bat walks for the public. You can always let us know of your bat sightings by sending us an email.

Wildlife Crime Unit Investigator wins international award

Andy McWilliam, a former Wildlife Crime Officer with Merseyside Police and now a National Wildlife Crime Unit Investigator, has won the Clark R. Bavin Award. The announcement was made this month at the 15th meeting of the CITES Conference in Doha, Qatar. For several years, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), a non-governmental organisation based in the United States of America, has presented awards to people who have engaged in law enforcement actions to protect species of wildlife listed in the Appendices of the Convention. These awards are given in cooperation with the Species Survival Network, an international coalition of over 80 non-governmental organisations, including AWI. The awards, named after a former chief of the law enforcement division of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, have traditionally been presented by the Secretary-General of CITES. Apart from his CITES work, Andy has worked tirelessly over the years to bring to justice people who have persecuted and abused birds and animals in the UK and this award is very richly deserved.

Butterfly man wins Dragonfly Award

After two decades of dedicated voluntary nature conservation work, Paul Loughnane, Secretary of Wirral Countryside Volunteers and Secretary of New Ferry Butterfly Park, has scooped the prodigious Unilever Dragonfly Award and a £1,000 prize in recognition for his environmental efforts at sites around the Wirral Peninsula.

The Unilever Dragonfly Awards are run by the Mersey Basin Campaign and recognise volunteers from across the Mersey and Ribble river catchment areas whose dedication has made a real impact on environmental improvement projects. This is the last of the Unilever Dragonfly Awards, as the successful 25 year old Mersey Basin Campaign draws to a close next month.

Paul has been honorary secretary of Wirral Countryside Volunteers for 16 years and has organised a varied programme of events throughout the Wirral and beyond. Paul has had a sustained relationship with the Mersey Basin Campaign gaining 23 grants and awards in the last 15 years. The Wirral Countryside Volunteers have been involved in pond restoration at Thornton Common a Site of Biological Importance which has benefited wildlife including longhorn beetles and thick-legged flower beetles and has been naturally colonised by Great Crested Newts. At Thornton Wood, a Site of Special Scientific Interest which lies along Clatter Brook, Paul and the volunteers have developed a six year hazel coppice rotation supplying hedging stakes for hedgerow restoration projects throughout the Wirral. Here bluebells and primroses flourish under this coppice regime. Paul has organised a woodland craft display at Eastham Country Park’s annual Woodland craft for more than a decade. Here the Mersey Basin Campaign have sponsored many interesting and hard to come-by woodland craft tools. The volunteers also work on the most westerly point on the Mersey Basin catchment area, at Gilroy Nature Park, West Kirby, near the source of the river Birket.

The Wirral Countryside Volunteers are currently based at New Ferry Butterfly Park. Here Paul has organised hedge-laying training days, scything parties to mow the meadows, and he hosts an annual celebratory BBQ in August. Paul enthused “We have been mowing grasslands and raking up the cuttings for over a decade now. It is a long haul; we are seeing the fruits of our labour as there are an increase in the number of cowslips in the spring and common sorrel, betony, meadow buttercup and red clover in the summer.” Paul, receiving the award at the park, reflected that “Here, at the park, is an area of land previously used for antisocial behaviour which has now turned into a community asset. This microcosm, admirably reflects the aims of the Mersey Basin Campaign which has helped to turn the Mersey from something neglected into an asset. In our own small way we have an impact and reflect the aspirations of the Mersey Basin Campaign.”

Spring tide

The spring tide this week saw the water covering the marsh at Parkgate and reaching the wall. The Dee Estuary website contains information about dates of future high tides, as well as all the species of birds that were seen this week. I thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle of seeing so many birds on the move. If anyone has any photos or details of sightings they would like to share, please email us and we will add them to the blog.