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St Firmin’s Churchyard update

See the latests news from St Firmin’s Churchyard.

Naturehood Wildlife Photography Competition 2025

East End Pond

March 8th 2025: Combined swift/bat boxes erected in East End Park Langtoft. Take a closer look.

March 2025: Our Video page has been updated, catch all the latest videos from the wildlife trap cameras here.

March 2025: The major construction work that has been taking place at the Penfield Nature Reserve to install paved access with a viewing area, for persons with reduced mobility, is now complete. More detail here.

Winter Gardening

Your garden can be a haven and sanctuary for wildlife in the winter. Our Mary-Anne has a few tips on what to do to make your garden a better home. Take a look on our Wildlife Gardening Page.

Group Visit to Langdyke Trust sites in Castor and Ailsworth

Pond Restoration. Field pond near Ailsworth having just been cleared with a 7.5 ton excavator.

02/08/2024: Members of the Naturehood Group were treated to a tour of nature reserves in Castor and Ailsworth, that are managed by Mike Horne of the Langdyke Countryside Trust. Mike and the team work hard on restoring or creating new habitats. Our group were treated to a very interesting and inspiring tour of the sites he looks after including the latest work the team had just completed. The talk and tour ranged from the tiniest of ponds to hidden flower meadows. Thank you Mike.

Learning about the restoration work.

Even a tiny pond can be very effective in boosting Amphibian populations

Rainwater catchment as part of a meadow restoration

Hidden Flower Meadow

Finding Your Way Around Penfield

31/07/2024: For those of you that are less familiar with, of new to the Penfield Nature Reserve, navigating the site just got easier thanks to the Fingerpost Waymarker Signs that have just been installed by our volunteers.

The way markers have been supplied by Nature Sign Design, and are funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. We would also like to thank SKDC for enabling this funding.

‘The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is a central pillar of the UK government’s Levelling Up agenda and provides £2.6 billion of funding for local investment by March 2025. The Fund aims to improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK investing in communities and place, supporting local business, and people and skills.

For more information, visit UK Shared Prosperity Fund: prospectus – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) ’

The 2024 Naturehood Wildlife Photography Competition

is open for entries. You can find the details, categories and rules here .

For the latest update story on East End Pond, see our East End Pond Langtoft page. (23/04/2024)

A big thank you to the Patsy Moore and the Thurlby Mothers Union for hosting our talk on “The Wildlife of Penfield” and for the generous donation of £20.10 which we will use for our bird feed. (21/04/2024)

Penfield In the Frost

Whilst out getting a picture for our upcoming Winter Walk (10:00 am on 2nd March 2024) poster, I snapped a few more pictures of Penfield on a frosty January morning. You can find more pictures here.

20/01/2024

Thurlby Church Yard Hedge Laying

A big thank you to John Oliver and his volunteers from the Lincolnshire wildlife Trust for their work in our Churchyard this week. The support is really appreciated.

On 16th and 18th of January we were so lucky to have John Oliver and his volunteers from the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, laying the east hedge of the churchyard, we are very grateful that they have taken this work on for us. This work will encourage the hedge to thicken up providing a great habitat for wildlife. We also planted trees last year within our hedge to provide food for wildlife.

The prunings and wood picked up in the churchyard is going to be used to build a dead hedge at the top of our managed grass area. Dead hedges provide hiding places and nesting habitats for all sorts of creatures. As it rots down the nutrients are recycled back into the earth below.

(20/01/2024)

Penfield

21/09/2023

The Wednesday working parties have been busy with plenty of grass cutting taking place using the strimmers with a little assistance from a scythe (thanks to Kingscliffe Railway Path Group for the training). The cut grass is removed, taking away nutrients. This benefits the many wildflowers at the expense of the grasses and over time will help our grassland areas to become even richer flower meadows.

The resident wildlife continues to do well. A more unusual visitor however was an Otter, which was observed just the once, and seemed to be passing through. A good population of frogs has been seen this Summer and Autumn which may also go to explain the siting of a young Grass Snake swimming in the main lake. The butterfly populations have done particularly well this year with Penfield reflecting the national trend (numbers up by around 4x). This is probably due to the wet summer, with lots of nectar rich flowers around late into the season. A few of the butterfly species can still be seen with Whites, Commas, Speckled Woods and Red Admirals still around.

East End Pond

13/09/2023

The grass has been cut using a contractor and some volunteer scything. John Oliver will be dropping off some green hay to help seed more wildflowers. A tree surgeon has been booked to come in and pollard the willows.  The cut wood will be used to create a log pile.

Thurlby

13/09/2023

The main task undertaken has been grass cutting, with the group making multiple cuts.  The group has received significant help from Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust specifically, Dave Vandome and John Oliver with machinery being provided.  John Oliver additionally bought bales of green hay from Thurlby Slipe to help spread seed on the cut areas.  The work also attracted some new volunteers to the Thurlby group.

John Oliver has offered to help lay the hawthorn hedge in the New Year.  The work could also be used as a training day for those interested.

Baston

13/09/2023

A work party in the church yard happened took place on the 2nd September. Grass was cut (two areas left for wildlife). The grass will be given another heavy cut (all areas, including the two areas left this time) towards the end of October.

The Tree canopies were raised by cutting lower branches. This will help improve sun light, access, and neaten the area.

Some bird boxes (6) and bat boxes (2) are being purchased from the “Don’t Lose Hope” charity, by the Baston Group, ready for volunteers to finish off and put on trees when they next convene in October.