WORK is due to start on improvements at Mouldon Hill Country Park which are being funded by Network Rail’s Greater Western Programme. This effort forms part of the Swindon Forest Meadow project, a partnership project between Swindon Borough Council and Wiltshire Wildlife Trust running over three years. The programme will fund work to improve the habitats on the tree mound within Mouldon Hill Country Park planted in 1990, since when only a small amount of management has taken place. The planned work includes managing scrub areas on the tree mound, thinning ash tree plantations, widening rides to create new wildlife habitats and more space for visitors to walk, creating 30 metres of glades, placing bird and bat boxes, and planting woodland wildflower like bluebells and hedge woundwort.
Marsh Fritillary butterfly by Stephen Davis There’s still time to help Wiltshire Wildlife Trust with their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to save the endangered marsh fritillary butterfly. The charity has the chance to purchase 44 acres at Upper Minety Meadows, next to the Trust’s existing nature reserve at Emmett Hill in the Braydon Forest. This will allow a much wider site to be managed to provide much-needed habitat for the butterfly, and enable its population in north Wiltshire to recover. The endangered butterfly was once found widely across the UK, but in recent decades has suffered a catastrophic decline, due in large part to the loss of suitable habitat. Critically, marsh fritillaries need devil’s bit scabious, a pretty, purple flowering plant often found in damp hay meadows, in order to lay their eggs and provide food for the caterpillars.