Pavilion wildlife area

You may have noticed the wildlife habitat around the Pavilion building, this is a fascinating wildlife project that is being carried out at the recreation ground.

With the cold spring start followed by alternating torrential rain and hot sun, all the plants have gone ZOOM. This means that not all the wildflowers have taken this year as the grass was pretty intense and it’s hard to trim grass without trimming the young wildflowers too!

Nonetheless, it’s working! The yellow rattle is establishing and this will help to thin the grass in future years and allow wildflowers a better shot! Ox-eyes are doing well, and we found that the Pavilion already hosted some nice wildflowers such as black medick, cut leaved geranium and white clover. Next year’s job will be knapweed, maybe some poppies, perhaps some red clover and vetches. Birdsfoot trefoil is being grown on some to add later this year.

The Pavilion now hosts a much wider range of wildlife including:

- Thick legged flower beetle

- Gwynne’s mining bee

- Red-tailed bumblebee

- Buff-tailed bumblebee

- Polydesma millipede

- 7 and 14 spot ladybirds

- Marmalade hoverfly

- Long hoverfly

- Drone fly

- Silver Y moth

We are working on some signage to explain what is happening and why as we have heard that not everyone likes the vibrant vegetation.

On Thursday 1 July, Year 2 and Year 3 from the primary school visited to do a Minibeast Hunt. The children were amazing and found SO many brilliant minibeasts, including a violet ground beetle…and one of the children also found a Spanish fly in the community woodland. This is a rare beetle with only a few dozen previous sightings in the UK, so Newington really is quite special.