Country parks and greenways

It's been a busy month for our rangers across the county, with a wide variety of conservation and maintenance projects taking place.

Nature recording at Ryton Pools Country Park

By Ben Coleman, Grassland Specialist Ranger

We have recently started a series of nature recording sessions at Ryton Pools, working with external experts to better understand what can be found on site and where. This includes a new venture working with the Warwickshire Amphibian and Reptile Team (WART) and RSK Ecology, whereby we provide a site for RSK's ecologists to host Great Crested Newt training, with them in turn providing us with their records. Rangers Courtenay, Craig and Ben joined the team for a recent session; we hope this will be the beginning of an on-going relationship with these partners.

We are also currently working with the Warwickshire Bat Group to set up some formal monitoring of our bats, as we have very little in the way of records for the site currently. Two acoustic monitoring recorders have been deployed on site, which record the bats echolocation calls for further analysis by expert bat ecologists. This will be followed up by fixed point monitoring by both bat group members and colleagues beginning on 24th June in an effort to add species to our current, very diminutive list.

Insect recording has also begun again in earnest in recent weeks, and we have already added 25 species to the Ryton Pools site list, including a very rare beetle Platystomus albinus and the discovery of a healthy population of the Longhorn Beetle Stenocorus meridianus, which hasn't been seen in Warwickshire since 1991!

And to top it all off, we recently spotted twelve spikes of Southern Marsh Orchid in our meadow, a spectacular plant that's new to our park and appears to be thriving so far.

Coir roll installation at Kingsbury Water Park

Colleagues from across Warwickshire County Council’s Country Parks service pulled together recently to install 240 linear metres of coir rolls around sections of the perimeter of three lakes at Kingsbury Water Park. Read more about this project and its many benefits to visitors and wildlife here.

A huge thank you to all our volunteers!

A big thank you to the volunteer team at Ryton Pools is in order, who worked hard to restore the wigwam in our children's wood which was sadly damaged by vandals. On top of that, in recent weeks they have also helped with grassland management, removing bramble, bracken and nettles from areas to encourage wild flowers to grow, as well as topping up all our sandpits and repainting our garden archway, entrance gate and fence.

Similarly in the north, the volunteer team has supported rangers with multiple projects, including the installation of a new sandpit in the wild woods event area, a riverside memorial bench, fences and gates to extend the pond dipping area, a replacement fence by the Model Boat Club, and efforts to tackle the invasive non-native species Himalayan Balsam that has unfortunately sprung up in a few places.

Our volunteers play an integral role in looking after our treasured country parks and ensuring they can be enjoyed by all. A heartfelt thanks to all involved for your consistent hard work and dedication!

If you're interested in joining our volunteer team, you can get more information here or by emailing parks@warwickshire.gov.uk.