Thanks to everyone who joined us at Wicks Green on Easter Saturday.
We discovered that there was a greater variety of plants in the park than we thought. We saw spring butterflies, nesting birds, the first signs of yellow rattle in our wildflower meadow and learnt about some of the mammals that use the path we created through the copse. The latter included muntjac deer and a stoat.
We found two of the Bracknell Forest Biodiversity Action Plan species - bullfinch and cowslip. We identified more than 30 species of trees (including some of the arboretum species), 6 butterfly species, 18 other insect species (including a very friendly acorn weevil), and 21 species of birds. We also found 13 different plants growing in our wildflower meadow.
We found several patches of bluebells (native and spanish) and will look at how we might expand the former, probably by coppicing around them.
With help from a couple of university students, we will turn our amateur approach to surveying into something that is a bit more scientific and repeatable. Assuming that we can get access to the site, we will carry out a similar survey at Blue Mountain on Saturday 15th June.