Last winter volunteers helped New
Milton Town Council clear some of the scrub and Rhododendron from
Barton Common. The Community Wildlife Project ran 7 fortnightly tasks
over the winter 2014-5 for volunteers to come and help clear scrub
using hand tools. This has created more space for wildflowers and
insects to spread across Barton Common. This work was carried out as
part of the Council’s Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) agreement with
Natural England through which the site is being managed more
sympathetically for wildlife.
On Saturday 2 May a guided bird walk on Barton Common was led by the County Bird
Recorder Keith Betton. 16 local residents attended and with Keith’s
expert guidance picked up some skills in bird identification. Species
seen and/or heard include whitethroat, blackcap, chiff chaff and
dunnock amongst other common bird species.
This spring 5 New Forest
ponies owned by a New Forest Commoner were released onto Barton
Common to continue to graze the site. Grazing with stock maintains
the grassland habitat that is so important for wildflowers and
insects.
Barton Common is home to many
invertebrate species such as marbled white and green hairstreak
butterflies and heath spotted orchids, and these and many other
species will benefit from the management taking place at Barton
Common through the HLS scheme. Volunteers monitor the butterfly
populations through a weekly ‘butterfly transect’.
Green hairstreak
butterfly
Long Meadow continues to be managed
more sympathetically for wildlife also, with the edges of the Becton
Bunny being left uncut for spring and summer period. This has
resulted in a number of wildflower species flowering including
meadowsweet, yellow flag iris, hemlock water dropwort, brooklime,
water cress, fool’s water cress and figwort. 3 species of damselfly
have been seen this summer using the stream (azure/common, large red
and beautiful demoiselle)
Beautiful demoiselle
damselfly
Earlier this month the non-native and
invasive ‘monkey flower’ (A Mimulus species) was removed from the
edges of the stream. This plant is known to be invasive and can cause
dense stands so please let the council know if this plant is spotted
again. Although the roots were removed, the plant can reproduce from
small fragments so it is likely to take several attempts to eradicate
it. Whilst pulling Monkeyflower, several plants of another non-native
and invasive plant Himalayan balsam were also removed.
Monkey Flower
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