Colliers Moss North, Bold Forest Park

Mike Holmes has put together a little video montage, reminding us just how much Colliers Moss has changed in 18 years!

Landscape scale change at Colliers Moss 2002 - 2020 See how trees have transformed the landscape of this former colliery spoil tip in just 18 years. Photos by Mike Holmes Music by ‘Fugitive’

Thanks Tom for this report from the Wildlife Walk.

COLLIERS MOSS WILDLIFE WALK
Sunday August 18 2019

The sun shone and the rain held off for the year’s third wildlife walk which was attended by 5 people. With the year well advanced it felt like a bit between seasons with many of the wildflowers having finished flowering or past their best and the first of the autumn’s fungi beginning to appear.

Wildflowers
A selection of the plants seen is listed below.
Many of the flowers are those of open grassland with associated adaptations – Daisy and Mouse-ear Hawkweed forming rosettes protecting them from grazing while keeping the soil beneath in the shade; by contrast the purple spikes of Tufted Vetch used tiny tendrils to climb the coarse grasses to reach the light. Yellowwort and Common Centaury which are more familiar in alkaline grasslands and coastal dune slacks were seen, slightly at odds with the Heather in full bloom more at home on acid soils. Tansy, Eyebright and Self Heal all long associated with medicinal properties were also found.

The list:
Yellowwort; Common Centaury; Eyebright; Self Heal; H**p Agrimony; Common Fleabane; Wild Teasel; Birdsfoot Trefoil; Tufted Vetch; Daisy; Mouse-ear Hawkweed; Creeping Cinquefoil; Trailing Tormentil; Dovesfoot Cranesbill; Common Knapweed; Creeping Thistle; Spear Thistle; Heather; Purple Moor Grass; Gorse; Common Reed; Common St Johns Wort; Corn Mint; Musk Mallow.

Butterflies
This is a year of the Painted Lady. These butterflies winter in North Africa and this year have migrated north in their millions. Over the summer there will be several broods with the caterpillars feeding on thistles. We speculated whether the butterflies we saw on Colliers were a final brood and would fly back to Africa in due course or whether there is time left for another brood.

The woodland edges along the paths at Colliers are ideal habitats for Speckled Woods. We saw several. This butterfly declined almost to the point of extinction by the 1920’s but has now recovered and can be seen frequently.

Two grassland species were seen-the Meadow Brown and a solitary Common Blue. The caterpillars of the latter feed on Birdsfoot Trefoil, which is quite abundant on the Moss. The one we saw was a female, being brown rather than blue although like the male has a beautiful pattern of white, black and orange on the underwing which was seen clearly as it fed on Common Fleabane.

Other Insects
Many leaves on the Alder trees were brown and wrinkled and showing the leaf veins like a skeleton. This had been caused by the Alder leaf Beetle now very common in the North West having been rediscovered near Manchester in 2004. We couldn’t find any of the small adult shiny black-blue beetles but there were still some of the black larvae to be seen.

One of the group spotted lots of knobbly green growths on a young Oak tree. These turned out to be Knopper galls caused by small wasps which lay their eggs in the young acorn causing the plant to produce these growths inside which the young wasps mature. The gall arrived from the continent in the 1960’s and at one stage caused much concern about its possible effect on the ability of oaks to reproduce. However this is no longer seen as a major threat. The name derives from a German word for a type of helmet.

One large but unidentified Dragonfly flew rapidly overhead. However there were lots of the smaller Common Darter to be seen, the red bodied males being particularly noticeable.

Fungi
Despite the recent wet weather there were only a few fungi to be seen and many of them had been decimated by the slugs.

Those we did see included:
• The Blusher – staining pink where nibbled by the slugs
• Bleached Brittlegill – white gilled and with a pink cap fading to white
• White Fibrecap – the lilac variety with purple gills
• Turkeytail – a bracket fungus growing on the Birch stumps
• The Deceiver – small orange toadstool with distinctive pinkish gills
• Clustered Toughshank – forming a well-defined fairy ring
Hopefully the conditions will be right for the next walk on September 29th which will be a fungal foray.

Tom Ferguson
20-8-19

Please note that due to the extremely wet weather, combined with ongoing works on the site, the access to the Millennium Bridge from the north (Parr) side is very muddy and unsuitable for all but the most intrepid!

Therefore we would advise anyone wishing to join the wildlife walk on Sunday to approach from the south side (access from Bold Lane). Tom will lead a walk on the south side of the railway - the former site of Bold Colliery. Boots or wellies recommended in any case.

Here's Tom's report from the Wildlife Walk on Sunday. Thanks to Tom and everyone who turned up for a lovely sunny outing.

The first walk of 2019 took place in warm sunshine after a cold and at times wet week. Twelve people attended
The main purpose was to have a general look for what could be seen here in the Spring.

For most of the wildflowers it was still too early in the season but there were hints of what would follow including Teasel, Mouse-ear hawkweed and Ox-eye daisy. Those which we did find in flower included:

 Hairy Bittercress
 Birdsfoot Trefoil (important food plant for the Common Blue Butterfly
 Creeping Cinquefoil
 Dovesfoot Cranesbill
 Lady’s Smock
 Hawthorn
 Ribwort Plantain
 Thyme leaved Speedwell
 Field Forget-me-not

There were single plants of both Common Storksbill and Wild Strawberry both possible first sightings on the Moss
As we walked under the trees of Birch, Alder, Oak and Pine the lack of any wildflowers was a reminder that this is a very young woodland and that most woodland specialists have taken hundreds, if not thousands of years to become established. So it was interesting to visit an area where nature is being given a helping hand by a project run by Liverpool University where a number of woodland flowers were planted several years ago. The Primroses have established and are spreading in profusion. Unfortunately they had finished flowering but the native Bluebells were doing well and looked splendid in the dappled sunshine.
The shade under the trees helped to maintain the moist conditions for mosses which were growing in abundance and ferns both dependent on moisture to reproduce.

As a former coal tip on the urban fringe, sites like Colliers Moss will be subject to a wide range of species more typical of gardens. One dramatic example of this was the small group of mature laburnum trees with their cascades of yellow pea shaped flowers near the amphitheatre
Birds were heard rather than seen although a Buzzard drifting in the blue sky above the Millennium Bridge was a good start.

Resident birds such as Blackbird, Robin, Wren and Song Thrush were all singing accompanied by the recent arrivals from Africa for the summer-Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Blackcap and Reed warbler.

Several of the latter were blasting out their scratchy songs in the Reeds preparing for nesting. A Reed Bunting was also seen fleetingly.

Two members of the group heard a Water Rail with its distinctive call like a pig squealing
Several Speckled Wood butterflies were seen patrolling the woodland edges, now well recovered from near extinction in the early 20th century. Orange-tips were also seen.

On alder leaves could be seen small shiny black beetles. These were Alder Leaf Beetles once rare or thought to be extinct but rediscovered in Manchester in 2004 and now common in the north west

The next walk will be on Sunday June 16th to look for orchids among other things

Tom Ferguson
May 13th 2019

Please be aware that the work to re-model the viewing mound (opposite the amphitheatre) is getting close to completion. The contractors are looking to re-instate the stone steps, replant shrubs and re-seed with grass / wildflower seed before the end of next week.

They will then be putting the access track back into a better condition as they pull the machinery off this end of the site.

Work on the western side of the Millennium Bridge will continue over the summer, but with material coming in from the western end of the site. There may be some disruption to access but this will be kept to a minimum and the rest of the site should be unaffected.

Wonderful history of Bold Colliery over at Stephen Wainwright's site (and plenty more besides): http://www.suttonbeauty.org.uk/suttonhistory/bold_colliery1/

Bold Colliery Part 1 | Sutton Beauty & Heritage

Perhaps in some ways things haven't changed that much in 25 years - here's the local community's priorities from the earliest days of Colliers Moss restoration:

Walked the Winter route today, we can't wait to see you all next Saturday!

Time to reveal our route for the Winter 5 miler.
We’re really looking forward to this.