If you followed the BBC's recent Springwatch series, you'll have heard Bill Oddie enthusing about the joys of getting to know 'your local patch'.
For the past 15 years, my local patch has been Bole Hill Recreation Ground (known to most local people simply as 'Bole Hills'). The site has the usual features of an urban park (sports pitches, bowling greens, playgrounds, etc) plus some interesting 'wild' areas, including woodland, scrub, grassland and heath.
Ecologically speaking, Bole Hill Rec has some rather eccentric characteristics. It is eccentricities like these that make urban ecology, for me, such a fascinating subject!
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Bole Hill was extensively quarried for building stone (the Crawshaw Sandstone, I believe). The disused quarries were then partially filled with domestic rubbish, industrial clinker and demolition rubble. The end product is a very uneven landscape: a series of rough terraces separated by steep slopes.
The waste materials that were dumped in the quarries have had a strong influence on the soil and vegetation.
There are areas of nutrient poor soils that support acid grassland and heath. Within a stone's throw there are dense thickets of rosebay, stinging nettle and bramble growing on soils that are clearly rich in nitrogen and potassium. I heard a rumour that this was where the night soil waggons used to dump their loads. It would certainly explain why the soil is so rich!
Yesterday afternoon the wild areas on Bole Hill Rec were positively buzzing with insects - bumblebees, butterflies and hoverflies - all drawn to the abundance of nectar offered by the bramble and rosebay flowers. The skipper butterflies were particularly active. Large skippers, having recently emerged, could be seen basking in the sun or getting fuelled up on nectar.
I will write more about 'my local patch' over the next few months.
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