Nature Reserve

allthough i live on the edge of a city i am fortunate enough to be spared the concrete jungle..and accross the road their is a nature reserve of sorts..full of rabbits and Squirells and great for the dog to stretch his legs...

This is where we enter it..

 

My dog Connor loves to run down this part...

 

This is the pond it was nearly dried up during the summer ..it still isnt very full and today it was iced over...

 

Their are a lot of native shrubs and wildflowers unfortunately idiots on motorbikes have trashed a lot but most still survive..

 

their is still lots of colour ideal for me to get photos..

 

Their is also a flat field which used to be a cricket field but its great for the dog to race along...

 

This site is situated on derelict land with a number of pools and colliery spoil heaps. There is unimproved grassland, scrub and marsh. The pools have a number of interesting plants associated with them, including celery-leaved buttercup, fool's watercress, water plantain, spike rush, broadleaved, curly and fennel pondweed, branched bur-reed and iris. The Waddens Brook site in Wolverhamton has alders and willows growing around some of the pools, whereas the Banks site in Walsall has been planted with a mixture of broom, and crack-willow around the recent pond at the northern end. Such species as brown sedge, false fox-sedge, oval sedge, triffid bur-marigold also grow in association with the pools.

The unimproved neutral grassland is grazed and great burnet is present which is uncommon in the locality. The marshy areas support jointed rush, hard rush, lady's smock, brown sedge and common sedge. Areas of spoil heap are colonised by hawthorn, elder, broom, wavy hair-grass, sallow and dog-rose.

To the south-west on The Banks site, there is a valley which floods during winter and there is an extensive area of soft-rush, but at the southern end of the valley a small patch of harestail cotton-grass grows.

Herons have been sighted at the ponds and the patchy scrub provides a favourable habitat for birds, such as willow warbler, linnet and yellowhammer. Frogs, toads and great crested newts are also known to breed at this site, and both dragonflies and damselflies are abundant around the well colonised ponds.

 

Is your nature reserve a working or volunteer managed area Wildflower?

Dogs will have to be kept on a lead where I am going as a volunter as dogs could scare the wildlife,there is a lot going on and soils getting tested.

Once I know more shall post a long interesting thread about it.

Liked your photo san dof course your friend he is lovley.

 

Scotkat..I dont think anyone bothers with it i have scattered some seeds over their to compensate for the idiots that have wrecked the wildflowers..Dogs are free to roam if we see a dog coming we go another way..its only the neighbourhood dogs that go their you never see any visitors..sometimes you hear guns firing that will be the gypsys catching rabbitts as their are loads of them..the council have put a sign up to announce the place ..but really its just derelict land..

 

How sad.But wonderful you scattered some seeds wildflower.