June at New Ferry Butterfly Park

Almost every day, on the New Ferry Butterfly Park Facebook page, we feature amazing photographs taken by Roy Lowry on his regular visits.

We know that not everyone uses Facebook so we have selected some of the images he has taken and shared with us in June.

Here are two busy bumblebees photographed at the beginning of the month.

Red tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius)

Common carder bee (Bombus pascorum)

However life will be less easy if they are spotted by a ferruginous bee-grabber. This fly lives up to its name by grabbing hold of bumble and honey bees to lay an egg from which a larva emerges and proceeds to eat the host alive.

Ferruginous bee-grabber on a bramble flower

Close up of Sicus ferrugineus - the ferruginous bee-grabber

On most sunny day visits to the Butterfly Park Roy will photograph butterflies.

Common blue butterfly (Polyommatus icarus)

Green veined white (Pieris napi)

Both photographs show how the underside of the wings differs from the upper surface.

Recent star of the butterflies for Roy Lowry was a dingy skipper that posed on the lime waste. This was the first he had managed to photograph since 2023.

Say hello to the dingy skipper!

Dingy skipper (Erynnis tages)

Also present at the Butterfly Park this month - small coppers, speckled woods and brimstone caterpillars.

Small copper (Lycaena phlaeas)

Speckled wood (Pararge aegeria)

Caterpillar of the brimstone butterfly (Gonepteryx rhamni)

Day flying moths are good to build a story around. Roy reported “The narrow-bordered five-spot burnet moths were in a frisky mood in Saturday’s warm weather”.

Two's company for the narrow-bordered five-spot burnet moths

Three’s a crowd...

But four?????

The pond is a good place to find dragonflies and damselflies. Here are paired azure damselflies expertly photographed egg-laying in the pond.

Male and female azure damselflies (Coenagrion puella)

The male azure damselfly is blue and the female is green

Roy also photographed two male broad bodied chaser dragonflies on the pond.

They had distinctively different markings - one had much more brown colouration on the thorax and base of the abdomen, but this might change as it ages.

Broad bodied chaser dragonfly (Libellula depressa)

A Broad bodied chaser dragonfly with more brown colouration

Here’s a hairy shieldbug.

Dolycoris baccarum - or the hairy shieldbug

As the name suggests, they're covered in tiny hairs - though you may have to look closely to spot them! They are also known as sloe shieldbugs, because they're often found around blackthorns, where they use their piercing mouthparts to feed on the fruits - called sloes. They also feed on the leaves, seeds and fruits of a wide range of other plants.

Hairy shieldbugs spend the winter as an adult, emerging in spring to mate. Females lay clumps of brownish, barrel-shaped eggs that stick firmly to the chosen plant. The young, known as nymphs, are smaller and rounder than the adults, but still covered in pale hairs. They go through several stages of growth, before maturing into their adult form in late summer or early autumn.

Dock bugs - a northerly migrating species - are now very well established.

Dock bug (Coreus marginatus)

The trivial plant bug is a Mediterranean species that was introduced into the London area on imported plants and has now got this far north. Roy first saw them last year.

Trivial plant bug (Closterotomus trivialis)

This year they are joined by the cabbage bug which Roy had not seen on the Wirral before.

Cabbage bug (Eurydema oleracea)

Roy’s favourite subjects are hoverflies, especially Chrysotoxum festivum (hook-barred spearhorn).

These are specialists with larvae feeding on ant-attended root aphids. He noticed a couple of males - one had territory on the path to the lime waste and the other on the path about halfway along the lime waste, and both territories were being defended.

The territory along the lime waste was also defended last year.

Hook-barred spearhorn (Chrysotoxum festivum)

Here’s Melangyna sexguttata sensu lato which he doesn't see very often.

This name is much longer than the actual hoverfly!

Melangyna sexguttata sensu lato

These mating craneflies make an interesting image.

Cranefly courtship

Not everyone likes spiders but here’s a zebra jumping spider with its prey. 

Zebra jumping spider (Salticus scenicus)

Visitors to New Ferry Butterfly Park can also look out for beetles.

Roy photographed thick-legged flower beetles plus several spotted longhorn beetles. These were flying around the bramble flowers looking a bit like self-propelled aliens.

 Thick-legged flower beetle (Oedemera nobilis)

Spotted longhorn beetle (Rupeta maculata)

June is a good time to admire flowers at the Butterfly Park, with the red poppies and marsh orchids being particularly eye-catching.

Poppies in the wild flower strip

A marsh orchid in the limewaste

New Ferry Butterfly Park is extremely lucky to have someone of Roy’s photographic and identification skills creating a monthly visual record of its wildlife.

Cleaver Heath Update

John McGaw is the Volunteer Warden at our Cleaver Heath nature reserve in Heswall and passed on some good news.

He has seen significant growth of new heather seedlings across the burnt areas of Cleaver recently, following the fire in August last year.

Heather seedlings on burnt ground

There is also some new heather growth within the experimental regeneration area that was cleared by contractors last year (reported on February 4th).

Heather regeneration

Let's hope the new heather can compete successfully with the birch and gorse seedlings which are unfortunately also growing vigorously!

Cleaver Heath was also a focal point at Cool Heswall in May. John had a selection of plants that grow at Cleaver Heath to show visitors. 

Heathland plants found on the reserve, as seen at Cool Heswall

He also took some Cleaver Heath spiders along!

New Ferry Butterfly Park Opening Day 2026

No butterflies but still lots of fun

New Ferry Butterfly Park held its 15th Opening Day on the Sunday of the first May Bank Holiday. This event marks the start of the park’s 31st open season to the public.

Guests of honour were the local Bromborough ward councillors Jo Bird and Ruth Molyneux. The councillors said how valuable this well-loved asset is to the community and thanked all the volunteers who keep it open and ensure its continual improvements. They also talked of the importance of biodiversity to everyone.

Bromborough ward councillors Jo Bird and Ruth Molyneux opening the new container

Then the councillors declared the new container ‘open’ by pulling a red ribbon bow attached to the doors. The new container will enable the volunteers to run community visits more efficiently. Each of the three local ward councillors, including councillor Keiran Murphy, contributed £300 to the container from Wirral Borough Council funds. This, along with a crowd funding project, a grant from Vitalflo and funds from plant sales together enabled the purchase of the container, material for the associated ground works and the addition of a sloping roof, guttering and water butt to harvest rainwater. The new container will act as an art tableau in the future as an artwork will be attached to the side with money from a legacy from the late Howard Gibson.

Mike being made Honorary President of the Butterfly Park. He never likes a fuss and is in the navy blue coat with his back to the camera.

A special presentation was given to volunteer Mike Maher who has been at the forefront of the plant sales at these opening days since 2012 and in the last four years extending to weekly plants sale throughout the season, constantly renewing the stocks. The money raised is important - over £4,000. But just as important, Mike made it an opportunity to engage with the park’s visitors, swap stories and learn a little more about wildlife. Mike even charmed a couple of his plant customers into joining the wardening team. A new team will continue with the plant sales. Mike Maher was made the First Honorary president of the park and given a certificate and a president’s trophy, a miniature of the butterfly bench that many butterfly park guests have sat on. This miniature of the bench was created by Ian Ramsay, whose wife Carol created the original bench.

Presentation of the model bench to Mike

Despite the unpromising weather, the 1,118 guests enjoyed a tempting BBQ, delicious homemade cakes, a tombola, local craft stalls, plus wildlife exhibits allowing close encounters with spiders, newts, slow worms, owls and a skunk.

BBQ

The Owl Man (with owls!)

A slow worm, brought along by Wirral Amphibian and Reptile Group

Sophie Lewis shared her pond dipping pleasures (see her blog post). RECORD was there to help guests hone their recording skills of plant and animals and informing people how to contribute their records. You could make newspaper pots and sow seeds in them to take home, and of course you could buy plants lovingly grown by volunteers. There was a stall about honeybees and honey from the Park was also available.

Sophie at the pond dipping table

Sewing seeds in pots with Steve of Wirral Countryside Volunteers

Honey from very local bees

A quieter spot was the storytelling gazebo where the children were spell bound by the storyteller and entered a world of calm. They made up their own stories about butterflies and they all knew about their life cycles. This year there was a special stall from the Cheshire Guild of Spinners and Weavers. They brought four spinning wheels and samples of various fibres such as alpaca, camel, possum, plastic before they were spun. A blanket had been made up of squares of all these various materials which you could feel.

Cheshire Guild of Spinners and Weavers

Examples of woven yarn

Although the Park had more spring flowers than ever there were no butterflies on the wing due to the unpromising weather. However, Alistair Noakes of Butterfly Conservation was on hand to show the milk bottle shaped eggs of a brimstone butterfly, so at least some butterflies were seen but without their wings yet.

Phil Putwain, chair of New Ferry Butterfly Park, said,  “The success of Opening Day, year after year, is a testament to the incredible hard work and commitment of so many of the park’s volunteers and Wirral Countryside Volunteers, often including spouses, partners and children, not only in organising, preparing for and then running the Opening Day but clearing up and returning many items back from whence they came. I thought this year was a lovely local community occasion, so relaxed and friendly and sometimes meeting and re-acquainting with people that one has not seen for a while and not too overcrowded. An experience of the best of local community culture at work.”

RECORD stall

Plant sale

Thanks to Bebington Tesco for donations to the BBQ and tombola, to the Refreshment Rooms, Rock Ferry, for sponsoring 100 burgers and more importantly use of a large chest freezer, to The Easter Lily for ribbon and to New Ferry Village Hall for the loan of gazebos and tables. Thanks to the team of 42 volunteers involved in the day; the team gets stronger every opening day.

The tombola

The Park is now open every Sunday between 12 noon and 4 pm until mid-September.

So do come back on a quieter Sunday and enjoy the succession of wildlife as the season progresses. The plant sales continue throughout the season.

Pond Dipping Pleasures

Sophie Lewis, an undergraduate at the University of Liverpool, has been carrying out research on ponds, including the one at New Ferry Butterfly Park. Here's a short report into her findings.

I really enjoy pond dipping because you never know what you will find. You can take the net out of the water and put the contents in a tray and then just wait. So many things will start wiggling and some are quite similar to ones we find on land!

Water hog louse (Asellus aquaticus) looks very similar to a woodlouse or pea bug 

Damselfly larvae (Lestidae family)

Male smooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris)

The Wirral is home to lots of freshwater ponds that are vital for our landscape because they provide habitats for rare aquatic species and can store carbon. However, my recent dissertation research project at the University of Liverpool reveals that many of our local ponds are declining and some ponds are being lost altogether.

The ponds I looked at were extremely varied. I looked at 10 ponds on the Wirral: Arrowe Brook Farm, Caldy and Heswall Golf Courses, Lees Lane, New Ferry Butterfly Park, Ness Gardens, Thornton Common, Thurstaston Country Park, Upton Meadows, and Willaston Meadow. I observed all their characteristics including water chemistry, aquatic macroinvertebrate species, aquatic and marginal plant species and greenhouse gas emissions.

Data collection at New Ferry Butterfly Park

I found that some sites were “zombie ponds” which are ponds that have very few species present and are not healthy. They are identifiable by measurable characteristics: over 50% shade, low species diversity, low oxygen concentrations, and high greenhouse gas emissions. However, the zombie pond state is reversible and can be managed by:

• Thinning out overhanging trees allows light to hit the water, kickstarting photosynthesis and oxygenating the pond.

• Protecting small, connected pond networks rather than just focusing on large ones.

• Actively managing and recording what you find in the pond to keep track of its status. My research showed that sites that are managed by volunteers like New Ferry Butterfly Park had some of the highest ecological quality in the study.

Upton Meadows, an example of a zombie pond with lots of tree cover

I also found that smaller ponds have higher macroinvertebrate richness than larger ones. This shows how vital the small ponds that we create in our gardens and on our local nature reserve sites are, even if they are not very big. I also found that newer ponds had more diversity than older ones so digging new ponds is a great way to boost aquatic biodiversity and you will be surprised how quickly species will arrive!

By using statistical models, I identified Dissolved Oxygen (DO) as the single most important predictor of a pond’s health. When oxygen is high, we see a diverse community of beetles and dragonflies. When it’s low, we are left with only "specialist" survivors, like Daphnia (water fleas) that turn red to survive the harsh conditions or rat-tailed maggots that use "snorkels" to breathe air.

Daphnia in Jacksons Pond, Willaston Meadow. (Daphnia sp.)

Rat Tailed Maggot Fly at Ness Gardens (Eristalini tribe)

I really enjoy pond dipping, especially at New Ferry Butterfly Park because there are so many different species you can find, especially the newts! You can go pond dipping there on Sunday afternoons (12-4) from May to mid-September, or come and visit on our open day on Sunday 3rd May from 11am to 4pm.

New Ferry Butterfly Park Pond

If you would like any more information about this research or a copy of the full dissertation, please get in touch with me at: sophielewis5303@gmail.com

Hiding in Plain Sight

An Ancient Oak at Claremont Farm

Earlier this year Hilary Ash, Honorary Conservation Officer for Wirral Wildlife, took a closer look at an oak tree she had seen many times before at Claremont Farm.

Realisation dawned that it was actually a very old oak tree that would be classified as ‘ancient’ - followed by surprise that she hadn’t spotted it sooner!

This tree had been pollarded - this involves removing the top of the tree by regular cutting of upper branches back to the main trunk during the dormant season, generally late September to early March. The purpose of traditional pollarding was to encourage several new side and top shoots from the main trunk, so firewood and other coppice products were readily available year on year at a manageable height.

This results in a very large trunk and the girth of this tree is 6.14m, suggesting it may be 400 - 500 years old.

It has astonishing ecological value too, supporting thousands of species in its nooks and crannies. There are several interesting holes in the upper branches, one of which has blue tits nesting.

Since its ‘discovery’ it has been given some care by Wirral Countryside Volunteers. Young ash were growing up through its crown, many of them with Ash Dieback Disease. Following advice in Aljos Farjon's book ‘Ancient Oaks in the English Landscape’, Pete and Steve from Wirral Countryside Volunteers coppiced the ash and some elder and used the brash to make a circle round the tree. This will free the oak from competition, and deter people from standing under the tree, which compacts the soil - and puts them in the way should a dead twig fall off! The tree's burry trunk can now be seen in all its glory. 

The oak tree after the surrounding ash had been coppiced.

When it comes to these special trees, the UK is immensely important. We have a phenomenal number of ancient and veteran trees compared with the rest of Europe. There are thousands all across the UK, from the oldest churchyard yews to lone oaks like this one standing in a field.

How old an ancient tree is depends on the species. Some species can live longer than others with yews, oaks and sweet chestnuts topping the age charts at over 1000 years. Other species, including birch and willow, live shorter lives.

Oak may live for 1,000 years, although 600 may be more typical on many sites. Hopefully this ancient oak tree will still be here for centuries to come.

More information about Ancient Oaks and pollarding

Aljos Farjon. (2017). Ancient Oaks in the English Landscape. Kew Publishing.

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. Pollarding, not a palaver!
https://www.ywt.org.uk/blog/yorkshire-wildlife-trust/pollarding

Woodland Trust. Ancient Tree Inventory.
https://ati.woodlandtrust.org.uk/how-to-record/species-guides/oak/