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Guesting on BCV40, Edwin Mallins explains the London Wildlife Trust's Great North Wood Project. The Great North Wood, counter-intuitively, was south of the Thames, in a bulge between Deptford, near the Thames, and Croydon to the south, with its rough centre in Upper Norwood (great Nor Wood) which is nowadays known as Crystal Palace. Edwin and Sam (his co-project officer) have been busy with vol...

Bolton Conservation Volunteers meet on 10th February 2019 at Ravenen Clough on the Smithills Estate, near Bolton, to cut back rhododendrons which are crowding the path around the clough, to clear clogged drains which are causing the path to flood, and to make wildlife friendly habitat piles from the brashings. Video and music from The Thing in my Soup.

On 4th November 2018, Bolton Conservation Volunteers restored the cockle shell bed on Blackleach Country Park's island in the reservoir. The volunteers shift 6 tons of cockle shells from the car park to the island, lower them down a high brick wall and ferry them across the lake. The shells are laid on newly laid matting to provide safe nesting for terns and swans. Music and video from The Thin...

On 23rd September 2018, BCV held their first ever Wildfest at Moses Gate Country Park. Opened by Kath Martin, the event was organised into eight areas: meet and greet, dog training and advice, bird identification, pond dipping, hurdle making, den making, wildlife art & bug hunting, with a reward at the end of popcorn and pancakes. Set to music from The Thing in my Soup.

Bolton Conservation Volunteers and Woodland Trust gather at Walker Fold Farm for drystone walling training on 27 August 2018. We put back stretches of wall that had been in poor condition, and had been further dismantled down to a firm foundation by Tom, Rick and Paul The Wall prior to the task. Despite an all-day deluge, a substantial crew turned out. Edited to music from The Thing in my Soup,...

Bolton Conservation Volunteers and Friends of Bridge St LNR in Horwich re-engineer two ponds which do not hold water using Bentonite clay granules. Over two work days, the volunteers take a foot of soil out of the ponds and store it at the sides, then apply the bentonite clay, before sandwiching it beneath the previously dug-out soil. The process is explained by Rick Parker and accompanied by m...

Bolton Conservation Volunteers make a large toad hibernaculum at Eatock Lodge, Westhoughton. In additional work, they dig runaways and drains from a path that floods in the winter down to the lodge. Eatock Lodge has had a large population of toads for many years.

BCV's Rick Parker surveys two ponds at the Hacken Lane south site, Bolton, for Great Crested Newt eggs, while the Bolton Conservation Volunteers de-shade the ponds in the rain. Rick finds and shows us the GCN eggs, plus the tiny caterpillar of an aquatic China Mark Moth. Video and music by the Thing in my Soup.

Bolton Conservation Volunteers help Woodland Trust on 8th April 2018 with the first season's planting for the Northern Forest initiative, in which they intend to plant, over 25 years, 50 million trees throughout the Northern Forest , which comprises five contiguous north of England Community Forest Trust areas. The planting takes place near Burnt Edge, on the Woodland Trust's Smithills Estate t...

Bolton Conservation Volunteers meet at Anglezarke Reservoir for their fifteenth annual hedge laying competition in memory of Dr John Leather, the group's hedge laying guru. Four teams of two and a fifth team of one compete. The competition is introduced by Rick Parker of BCV, who also acted as judge. The hedges are laid in the Lancashire style where the laid branches are kept roughly parallel, ...

Bolton Conservation Volunteers meet at Eatock Lodge in Westhoughton, near Bolton, to lay a hazel hedge and create a long dead hedge from the brashings. The process is partly explained in captions. Music and video by The Thing in my Soup.

Bolton Conservation Volunteers meet at Hacken Lane Local Nature Reserve on New Year's Eve 2017, led by Rick Parker, to coppice osier willow in preparation for a schools project, which will be making hurdles at the edge of the LNR's paths from the withies. An extra task is to clear overhanging branches from one path which is used as a Bridle Path by horse riders, which frequent the LNR. Video by...

Bolton Conservation Volunteers meet in the rain on 17 December 2017, to de-shade two ponds at Bridge Street LNR in Horwich, near Bolton. This encourages the growth of oxygenating plants in the spring and helps biodiversity. We use the brashings to make habitat piles which will act as hibernating spots for amphibians and safe places for other small wildlife. We also create stakes for later use i...

Bolton Conservation Volunteers gather at Firwood Fold, Compton Way, Bolton, with Friends of Firwood Fold and other volunteer groups under the Bolton Green Umbrella, to lay the hedge at the edge of the path, which is a traditional way of thickening hedges and lengthening their life. We added dead hedge where the existing hedge was too sparse. Hedge laying used to be done to hold livestock in, bu...

Bolton Conservation Volunteers at Rumworth Lodge 2017

Bolton Conservation Volunteers at Eatock Lodge, Westhoughton, 27/8/17

Bolton Conservation Volunteers at Cunningham Clough, Westhoughton

Bolton Conservation Volunteers pond dip at Kearsley Moss

Bolton Conservation Volunteers with Beaumont & St Bernard's Primary Schools

Bolton Conservation Volunteers Drystone Wall Competition 2017

Bolton Consevation Volunteers at Kearsley Moss 23rd April 2017

Bolton Conservation Volunteers at Holdens Plantation 9 April 2017