The Friends of Middleton Park are hosting a free guided walk in Middleton Park on Sunday (28 July 2024) looking at the park’s trees and butterflies.
The land that used to be the “Old Nine” of the municipal golf course at Middleton has in recent years been planted with specimen natural and parkland trees, by Wade’s Charity, to make an interesting Tree Trail. Of course the park has a wonderful selection of existing trees, including a magnificant Oak tree thought be over 250 years old. We will do our best to try and identify many of the trees we pass, so if you wish, you can brush up on your tree identification skills.
Part of Middleton Park is a Nature Reserve, and at this time of year there are many butterflies and other insects around. We will see how many different sorts of butterfly we can find. While the park cannot boast any rare species, it does have a good population of Purple Hairstreak butterflies. The Purple Hairstreak can be hard to spot and is often overlooked, not many people seeing it. Let’s hope for some sun to bring them out in good numbers!
Join us at 1:30pm this Sunday at the Visitor Centre in the park, for a walk of aproximately one and a half hours. Walks in the park may often include muddy or wet wooodland paths, so please wear boots or walking shoes, and appropriate clothing.
We will have ID sheets for common butterflies and trees to hand out to aid identification.
This post was written by Jim Jackson
Photo: Neozephyrus quercus, Purple hairstreak male
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