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| Busy morning at Greenacres |
Saturday 6th September was the RSPB’s Giving nature a home day at the 65
acre Greenacres woodland burial ground in Rainford, St Helens.
Following on from the success of previous RSPB led woodland
explorer events, it gave us a further opportunity to raise awareness of this wonderful
new woodland burial ground and to work in partnership to help
improve the site for nature and people and hopefully inspire future generations
to help nature flourish. The main aim of our shared event was to show local children
some nature on their doorstep, and what
they could continue to do at home to attract and help wildlife.
Despite the early rain
over a thirty intrepid explorers - children, their parents and Sam the dog made it to
the site. RSPB staff volunteers
Katie, Helen and Jayne helped them make bird fat cone feeders to take home, search through leaf litter piles in search of
small beasties and enter the day’s colouring competition . The children were
introduced to Homes for nature that could be built or bought i.e bird boxes , butterfly, bee and insect houses, hedgehog and frog homes, and
various bird feeders.
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| Chris Tynan from RSPB Liverpool leading wildlife walk |
Chris from our group led two walks around the grounds identifying flora and fauna along the way. The
children were kitted out with loaned binoculars, to
assist them in spotting some of the wonderful bird species in the woods
including more less well known birds such treecreepers, nuthatches, woodpeckers
and long tailed tits.
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| What bugs that?! |
Hardworking Keely and Richard from Greenacres led the
children with their magnifying glasses on
a bug hunt in the woods, and got them busy tree bark rubbing. Doing this meant the children had the chance to earn the
much coveted Greenacres woodland explorer badge.
Back at the hall we
were well looked after by Greenacre’s Angie
who supplied us with the tea, coffee and jammie dodgers from the café hatch.
Anna busy with burial ground visitor enquiries all morning managed to join us later in the afternoon for chat
about the site and to see what was going on.
Greenacres was
formally opened in April 2014 and is already the resting place of many souls.
The ceremonial building is large modern wooden building that fits in with its
surroundings, the chapel area having a cathedral high ceiling with large glass
windows/doors overlooking the rich
flower meadow.
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| Ceremonial building |
This building and the attached car parking are situated between 2 woods, Emma
and Grace woods, down in a natural dip the area has been landscaped with wild
flower meadows and specimen trees such
as silver birch, rowan, and alder. There are wide
paths, wide enough for a complimentary golf buggy, used to ferry
prospective visitors.
The woodlands are mainly mature broadleaf trees including
impressive oaks and sweet chestnuts, inside there are bluebell glades and an
orchid walk.
A berry heavy well established mixed hawthorn and elder hedge acts as a screen for the estates (Lord Derby
owns the land) Emma wood cottage. Many small birds were flittering through it and using it as jumping off point
to the cottage’s bird feeders! We
observed the ‘ red listed’ tree sparrow(http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/redliststory.aspx)
blackcaps, chaffinch, blue, great and coal tit and willow warblers. A
bird table has been positioned next to the woodland boundary and 2 seed feeders
are currently by the car park, foragers included robin, gt tit and a grey squirrel
–after it had stopped raining! (*Evidence of Red Squirrels on site have been reported)
There are several ponds on site, one of which has a healthy
population of fish; a Heron visitor can’t be far away! Moorhen, shelduck and breeding oystercatcher were recorded this year by one of the ponds.
Other/Woodland birds noted at our event Sparrowhawk, jackdaw,
jay, nuthatch, kestrels, wren, buzzards, wood pigeons, collared dove, robins,
mistle thrush, and crows. Butterflies, whites, red admiral and speckled
wood. A large solitary rabbit was
mooching around the back of the ceremonial building.
The weather wasn’t particularly kind on Saturday and many other
birds, insects can be found on site, please, see the monthly Wildlife watch
reports on the Greenacres website
Future plans working with the RSPB should include the supply
of a barn owl platform for the barn (healthy owl pellet found by ceremonial
building at event - full of little bones!) and tree sparrow boxes.
The site is open to the public to roam. As long you report to
reception, be respectful and keep your dogs on a lead.
Go and a have a look around, autumn colours emerging.
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| On the bug hunt |
Laura
