A very wet morning for our latest scrub clearance task, but the weather cleared up a bit later, and at least it wasn't spiky stuff this time, just Poplar suckers and Sycamore we removed from a fixed dune site with an important, but declining, Sand Lizard population. 

NMARG's latest habitat management task, on Sunday, Feb 19th, 2017, took place again on the Ainsdale dunes LNR, when we cleared further areas of invasive Sea Buckthorn. Some of the spiky bushes we cleared were more than 10 years old, judging by the annual rings on the stumps! We generated several piles of brash, including a very large one, ready for burning at a later date.

NMARG's latest habitat management task, on Saturday, January 28th, was very well attended, despite the heavy, blustery rain showers. We were joined by 8 volunteers from Liverpool Sir John Moore's University, making 16 people in total, and everyone got stuck into clearing scrub, especially Sea Buckthorn from a large area on the Ainsdale dunes, creating better habitat for Sand Lizards and Natterjack Toads. We dragged the brash into quite a number of large piles, ready for burning when the weather was drier. 

NMARG's first habitat management task of the Winter, 2016-17 was attended by 10 volunteers, when we successfully cleared scrub and small trees from an important fixed dune Sand Lizard site on the Sefton Coast, in conjunction with the Sefton Coast and Countryside Ranger Service. Some of the scrub removed was regrowth and suckers, but it is essential to keep on top of it, in order to prevent the scrub from re-invading cleared sites. The work will be continued during subsequent tasks this Winter.