Over the next month or so, the main focus of our habitat management work will be hedgerows and scrub management. In some areas this will involve cutting scrub back, hedge-laying and coppicing and in others, we’ll be planting new hedgerows. Whilst the work is being done there could be some disruption & disturbance, and it can look a little messy until we start getting some new growth in the spring, but rest assured, we're doing this work for the benefit of our birds, bats & butterflies...
Hedgerows for hairstreaks
In some areas we’ll be working on the blackthorn hedgerows, where the hedge-laying will help with blackthorn regeneration. The new growth of blackthorn is especially important for brown hairstreak butterflies – the fussy females like to lay their precious eggs in the fork between new and old growth. Cutting it back also encourages suckering which will help us to develop wider, deeper hedgerows that provide a fantastic home for all sorts of wildlife.
Brown hairstreak by Gareth Hughes
One of the best ways to monitor a population of brown hairstreak butterflies is to look for their pinhead sized eggs on the winter blackthorn twigs. A team of 30 staff and volunteers will be doing this in January & hoping to beat the count of 61 eggs from our 2017 survey.
Brown hairstreak egg by Phil Thornton
A niche for nightingales
Scrub and woodland habitats needs to be managed on a regular basis as they change rapidly. As the trees get older they start to shade out the plants underneath them, leaving the ground layer too open for some of our scrub-nesting birds such as the nightingales. The sallows in particular get very ‘leggy’ and start blocking out the light without providing the dense cover that our nesting birds need.
We manage our nightingale hotspots in rotation, coppicing or pollarding some of the trees and layering and hedge-laying other shrubs and trees. Creating better variation in the age structure along the hedgerows ensures there are some nice dense thickets of undergrowth for our nightingales and warblers to nest in. They like young trees with perches to sing from with plenty of dense cover underneath to nest in and in which to forage for food. Particular areas of focus this year will be around Fattengates courtyard, along the Pig Run and in Nettley’s picnic area.
Nightingale by Mike Beck
The coppicing of the sallows around the courtyard will also benefit the pond life. The sallows take up a great deal of water and this accelerates the drying out of the two small ponds which can be breeding ponds for Great crested newts. We’ll also be removing most of the spruces which have become rather windblown in recent years and following high winds have often resulted in us having to close the courtyard. These non-native trees aren’t especially good for wildlife, and we’ll be retaining some of the standing deadwood as perches. Our aim will be to dampen this area up and create denser scrub to make the area even better for nightingales.
Alleys for adders
Along adder alley, as well as some hedgerow work we’ll be creating some scallops in the brambles around the trail edges to provide more basking spots for reptiles.
Waders at West Mead
Towards the end of the month we’ll be carrying out tree felling and scrub clearance along the fence line adjacent to West Mead hide – the one that runs south from the hide. This is one of our primary areas for breeding waders (lapwing & redshank) and we will be putting up the temporary fence to protect the nests from ground predators such as foxes. The eggs & chicks however are still vulnerable to predation by corvids who use the over-looking trees as vantage points to locate the nests. Whilst we’re doing this work, West Mead hide will be closed (Monday 29 & Tuesday 30 January).
Lapwing chick by Anne Harwood
New wildlife corridors
We’re not just cutting things back, we’ll be planting things as well. A mixture of trees and shrubs will be planted along the fenceline that runs between Upperton’s field and Hollybush Hill. This will create better links between the wooded heath, Parham & the hedgerows & woodland around the wetland trail. Once established this will create an important corridor for bats moving between roost in the woodland and feeding areas closer to the wetlands.
The trees and shrubs have been supplied by the Woodland Trust and provide a great mixture of food plants for caterpillars and other invertebrates, fruits for birds such as our winter thrushes and shelter & nesting habitat for some of our lovely warblers. The hedgerows will be planted with a mixture of hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, spindle, dogwood, dog rose, field maple & crab apple.
Hedgerow regeneration
With fewer cattle on site during the winter, we’re looking to manage the ‘High Fields’ slightly differently. Winpenny field is being developed as a wildflower meadow, the deer exclosure sections in Fattengates field & Winpenny field have been planted up with scrub species and a new fence line has now been put up in Fattengates and Brook field adjacent to the public footpath. This will encourage the thickening and regeneration of the hedgerows which are beginning to look a little sparse in places.