BLOOMING BEAUTIFUL BLUEBELLS

Warwickshire Wildlife Trust is delighted to receive a grant of £4,450 from Carillion plc’s Natural Habitats Fund to initiate a new project Rough Hill Wood SSSI, near Studley.

The project, titled ‘Blooming Beautiful Bluebells’ will enhance the woodland to benefit the bluebells in the wood and also to improve the access for people that wish to visit this fine bluebell wood.

Britain is famous for its bluebell woodlands and Rough Hill Wood is a good example.  Britain also contains at least twenty percent of the world’s bluebell population, and whilst some of the UK populations have become hybridized with the Spanish bluebell, those in Rough Hill Wood are ‘the real McCoy.’

The project, which will run from July 2008 until March 2009, aims to reduce the shading effect of dense trees by sensitive tree thinning. Contractors will be employed to fell trees and extract the timber in the winter months to minimise disturbance to wildlife. We shall be looking to volunteers from Carillion plc and from all other walks of life to help improve the existing path network by improving steps, surfacing paths and making bridges as well as with smaller scale woodland management.

A WOODLAND OPEN DAY to see the project at first hand and to find out more about how to you can become involved will be held in the Autumn. This will include a demonstration of heavy horse timber extraction – always an awe-inspiring sight.

Eddie Asbery, Reserves Woodland Project Officer at Warwickshire Wildlife Trust says, “Bluebells flourish in a moist microclimate and because they colonise new areas so slowly, are often found in our old woodlands. However, bluebells do not fare well under a dense canopy of trees and as  such, our native  woodlands need to be managed sensitively if their bluebell populations are to remain healthy. The grant will also enable us to upgrade steps and bridges so that walking around the wood to see the bluebells will be more pleasant.”

ENDS

Press contact:              Eddie Asbery on 024 7630 8984

  Last updated 21 July, 2008