NMARG has completed a total of five habitat management tasks on the Sefton Coast during the Winter of 2015-16. These mainly involved the removal of invasive Sea Buckthorn, especially regrowth in areas previously cleared. Although it will be necessary to go over many of these areas again next Winter, the start of the Spring bird-nesting season means that we can no longer do this work and will now turn our attention to renovating sand patches, in order to provide suitable places for Sand Lizards to lay their eggs in Summer. There will be several tasks involving this kind of work during the period mid-April to the end of May, and they will be advertised on the Events page in due course.

For our second scrub control session in the Ainsdale dunes, six of NMARG's members were joined by a team of eight from Sir John Moores University's Conservation Society. We managed to clear quite a large area of sea Buckthorn suckers and regrowth in, and adjacent to, one of the largest slacks in the Ainsdale LNR, as well as completing the area cleared in the previous task. This will greatly improve the habitat for foraging Natterjacks, as well as sand Lizards on the adjacent slopes.

NMARG is arranging a series of volunteer habitat management tasks during the Winter of 2015-16 on the Sefton Coast sand dunes. The aim of these tasks will be to improve the habitat for Sand Lizards and Natterjack Toads by clearing invasive scrub and trees, which will otherwise shade out basking areas for the lizards and invade the very short vegetation required by hunting Natterjacks. This scrub and tree control will also benefit many other rare wildlife and plants on the Sefton Coast.

The biggest problem is the Sea Buckthorn, a very spiky shrub which is not part of the native flora of the Sefton Coast, but has established itself quite widely across the more fixed dunes and can spread very rapidly, if not controlled and, ideally, eradicated. Although ARG volunteers, together with the Sefton Coast Ranger Service and Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, have tackled some quite extensive areas of Sea Buckthorn and other scrub and trees on the Sefton Coast during the past few Winters, there is always some regrowth, suckers and new seedlings to contend with. The aim of many of the tasks this Winter will be to return to the areas which have been cleared previously and remove all the regrowth. Its rather like gardening on a larger scale really - always a lot of unwanted vegetation growth which needs regular visits to try and keep under control.

For the first task, on Sunday, December 20th, we tackled patches of Sea Buckthorn growing close to the recently excavated Natterjack pools, attempting to remove the regrowth there before it becomes too prolific again. Subsequent tasks will take place at regular intervals at various locations on the Sefton Coast during the remainder of the Winter (see 'Events' section for details).

For our fourth habitat management weekend of the Winter, on the Birkdale dunes, we were joined by Mark Barber and Richard Pond from SWWARG, as well as John Gramauskas and four of his volunteers from Sefton's Ranger Service. A considerable amount of invasive Sycamore, Poplar, Willow and Birch trees were cut down, also Sea Buckthorn scrub. We were able to burn some of this and all the stumps were treated with herbicide, to, hopefully, prevent regrowth.

The aim of this work is to provide better habitat for Sand Lizards and Natterjacks, linking up remaining colonies. We are planning to follow this work up with the creation of patches of bare sand in the Spring. 

For our third big habitat management weekend of the Winter, in part of the Birkdale and Ainsdale Sandhills local Nature Reserve, we were again joined by our friends from SWWARG, Pete Hill and Richard Pond, with their chainsaws, as well as some volunteers from Sefton's Coast and Countryside Ranger Service, with a total of 18 people attending for at least part of the weekend.

The work entailed the removal of some sizeable trees, especially alien Sycamores, which were shading parts of an area important for Sand Lizards, also the cutting down of a considerable amount of invasive Sea Buckthorn and other scrub. We managed to drag most of the brash into piles and then burn it in three separate fires (see photos above).

The roaring fires and almost continous sunshine helped to counteract the cold, brisk wind, and hopefully everyone found it much more enjoyable and rewarding than being stuck indoors!

Again many thanks to John Gramauskas, from the Sefton Ranger Service, for so efficiently organising the fires.