Really Wild Lockleaze - Catching Butterflies, and wildflower seeds!
Residents have visited Stoke Park twice last week with Eric, our Ecologist. They caught butterflies in nets and learnt to identify them, and then they collected the wildflower Yellow Rattle.
Residents had two more delightful walks across the wildflower meadows of Stoke Park last week with the Really Wild Project. [link https://www.lockleazehub.org.uk/really-wild-lockleaze]
In the first walk, 13 residents and their children (including learnt about butterflies, and the wildflowers they and their caterpillars feed on.
One resident described the walk as ‘Just wonderful and exciting.’
Another resident, Lorraine, described how she had learnt “how important wild spaces are.”
The children on the walk particularly loved catching the butterflies and caught us 7 different butterfly species - Skipper, Speckled Wood, Red Admiral, Painted Lady, Gate Keeper, and Meadow Brown, along with the day flying Cinebar moth.
The next day, 10 residents went back to the same meadows to collect wild Yellow Rattle Seed. This was done with permission from Stoke Park, and using the Wild Flower Society’s code of conduct, which lays out how you should take from only from one in twenty plants when foraging from wild flowers (and never remove the plant itself).
They also collected meadow grass seeds, because it is important to sow grass and Yellow Rattle together, as then they do much better.
The Really Wild Lockleaze Project is hoping to get lots of residents to plant this seed in modules for us this winter. This will create lots of Yellow Rattle plug plants to plant out on the new meadow patches Lockleaze residents are hoping to create on their greens. Please get in touch if you would like to grow some plug plants this winter for us, or create meadow on your greens or verges!
Yellow Rattle is a very important wildflower, as growing it weakens the tough grasses that are often sown on our lawns. This creates space for other wildflowers to thrive.
Next Events:
Wild Flower and Grasses Seed Collection Walk August 16th 10am-12pm eventbrite.co.uk/e/678006033297?aff=oddtdtcreator
Bat walk across Stoke Park with Steve England Thursday 7th September 7.30-10pm eventbrite.co.uk/e/675142789257?aff=oddtdtcreator
Call in at the Hub to meet us, or contact our Project Co-ordinator Eleanor at reallywild@lockleazent.co.uk
Residents catching butterflies and collecting seeds in Purdown’s wildflower meadows