Sunny walk in 2026

 For once we had a sunny afternoon for our informal A Rocha/SWWG/SFG nature walk today, so I thought a record of some species we found around the Dingle Trail and Park Pond would be worthwhile. Bee Orchids (Waitrose) - about 20 as seedheads. Cat's Ear, Autumnal Hawkbit, Ground Elder. Black Spleenwort & impressive Lady Ferns. Butterflies - Large White c20, Small White 1, Holly Blue 5, Ringlet 2, Comma 3, Speckled Wood 3, Red Admiral 1. Scarlet Tiger Moth 3. Dragonflies - Banded Demoiselle female (also pairs afterward), Blue-tailed Damselfly 8, Azure Damselfly 2. Songbirds - Wren 2, Chiffchaff 2, Blackcap 1. Moorhen, both well grown and tiny young. Purple Loosestrife, Water Forget-me-not, Brooklime nfl, Gipsywort nfl, Figwort. Field Maple, Aspen, Horse Chestnut leaf miner. Common Spotted Orchids c30, also Ragged Robin, Large Birds-foot Trefoil, much Meadowsweet,  Musk Mallow, Wild Carrot. Nice.

May walk

 Our first guided walk of the summer found a kingfisher! Flying under Brook bridge towards Dingle Lake. Interesting flowers included Field Madder near Waitrose (but no obvious Bee Orchids), Large Bittercress near the Lake, Bogbean in the Park pond. Black Spleenwort doing well considering the dry weather.

Sandbach Fine Trees Circuit - NEW

  And yet another one! Now on this blog you can find the links to our new SANDBACH FINE TREES CIRCUIT! On your desktop view, the links should immediately be visible on the right (as well as on a separate page). On your mobile or tablet you will need to go to the separate page - just click the down arrow to see the pages available. It is, of course, a bit late in the year to launch a Trees guide, but if you head out now you should be able to get a look at most of our finer trees before all of their leaves fall off. And next spring it will be brilliant to see them all coming into leaf! Let's all take care of them and of the wonderful world that has been lent to us. 

For help with this guide, I must especially thank Trevor Boxer of Sandbach Footpath Group, who has long made a study of trees around the Park and town. Also Roger Foden has added some nice photos. Please let me know of any problems with the links. And enjoy!         George

New Nature Trail Guide!

 And on this blog now, folks - at long last! - are the links to the new FILTER BED WOOD and OFFLEY WOOD Trail guide. On your desktop view, the links should immediately be visible on the right (as well as on a separate page). On your mobile or tablet you will need to go to the separate page - just click the down arrow to see the pages available. Enjoy!         George

Recent sightings

 Nice sightings include a Kingfisher seen occasionally at Mill Hill Lane bridge, and once even in Beech Wood; 9 Common Spotted Orchids in Sandbach Park; frequent Banded Demoiselle dragonflies along the brook (all Trail routes); and (16/7/2021) unusually, an Emperor Dragonfly patrolling a short stretch of the canal just on the Elworth side of the Wheelock road bridge! George

We're now on Facebook!

 We are now on Facebook! - just click on the right to go to our SWWG group page. BUT this blog will stay in operation as a place to find links to our free downloadable Trail guides (via tab or on right), and as an information store; and occasional nature articles may still be posted here. But for a busy view of Sandbach woodland and wildlife and lots of friends, just press the button! 

Wildlife's challenge

 Work continues in Filter Bed Wood on the Sandbach Woodland and Wildlife Group's Sandbach Bridges Trail (East), which will complement the existing Sandbach Bridges Trails (North) and (South), the Brook Wood Trail, the Sandbach Environment Trail created by the Friends of A Rocha group and of course the very popular Wheelock Rail Trail managed by Cheshire East Council.

This image from near to Filter Bed Wood shows a magnificent Giant Horsetail that demonstrates how challenging the natural world finds it to live alongside us humans nowadays. The height of the plant can be judged by comparison with the (standard size) traffic cone that someone had abandoned deep in the woodland....

Giant Horsetail

Summer of lockdown

 As we all know, our local wildlife has flourished during lockdown this spring and summer. I have photographed some nice wild flowers along the nature trails in Brook Wood and Dingle Wood, including Moschatel. Sweet Violet is well established on the Rail Trail. Tawny Owls are often heard around the Park area and a young Great Spotted Woodpecker was there. A Kingfisher has been seen flying up the valley to the old mill pool above the weir on Mill Hill Lane. (Grey Wagtails nest there too, and at Brook Bridge). A fine colony of Butterbur grows by the river below the Wheelock football field. Little Owls may have nested not far from the Queens Drive estate. Not all of our wildlife has appeared naturally. Several spikes of Common Spotted Orchid flowered in the wildlife area of Sandbach Park; they had been planted there but are from local rescues and we wish them very well for the future - they look nicely settled. 

But elsewhere, I found an even stranger artificial delivery today when a shocked dog-walker outside my house pointed out two Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillars on the grass by the road! I attach a couple of pictures.The larger stretched to some four inches long (when it felt like it). I can only think they must have been dumped there by some equally shocked person who found them in their garden. I looked up their food plant on Google, and discovered to my delight that one plant which Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillars will consume is Himalayan Balsam! So they are now chomping away not far from here on one of Sandbach's most pervasive pests. That's the sort of biological control measure that I like! I hope you see one of the moths later.

Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillars:

    

Winter and spring

Winter has come to an end in the Sandbach Wildlife Corridor and spring is "icumen" in, as the mediaeval song puts it. Now that we are all confined to barracks, we can at least hope to get out along the nature trails or at least enjoy the wildlife that comes to visit us. But it has been a sodden one until now, hasn't it? The only wildlife that has stayed pristine is that which has stayed above the wet ground, like this fungus on a mossy branch near Filter Bed Wood.

However, all sorts of things will be springing up soon. Walkers in Dingle Wood should watch out for the brilliant yellow Marsh Marigolds that will shortly produce their fine display. A dashing male Sparrowhawk was hunting near Brook Wood. But should care for our woods; last autumn I was inspecting an impressive colony of Giant Horsetail near Filter Bed Wood when I was  displeased to find one fine tall spike of it growing in a very artificial environment - out of a large traffic cone:

Nevertheless, the birds and the bees are moving, even if the human world has suddenly stopped. We saw a fine Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Nuthatch in Dingle Wood, and the local Buzzards are frequently over the valley. At the Sandbach Park Pond the resident Moorhens are rarely seen unless you pause and watch for them slinking through the waterside vegetation, but they will prepare to nest soon. And finally, here's one more  piece of evidence that spring has arrived!

Ringlet in the changes!

Roger F was delighted to photograph a new butterfly for Sandbach at the weekend, in the rough ground below the lower Waitrose roundabout. That is in the area that is downstream of St Mary's Dell. The Ringlet butterfly has been spreading steadily northward so it is hardly a surprise, but it is an attractive addition to Sandbach's fauna. At first glance Ringlets might be taken for dark Meadow Browns, but they have no orange panel above or below; and when they land an examination with reveal their eponymous rings on both upper and lower wings. Of course, if it is hot you may wait a long time for them to land! Well done, Roger! - George H

Water Rail!

A great bird sighting at Sandbach Park Pond has been passed along by birding expert Andy Goodwin. In about November, he spotted a Water Rail feeding right underneath the boardwalk beside the pond (and it could well still be around for the winter, so look out for it!). This is the first he has seen there since the 1960s.

Not a sad flower!

A very nice discovery yesterday was a rather rare wild flower beside the new Dingle Bridge footbridge. No wild flower seed has been sown - or plants introduced - at that spot, but a large and healthy-looking plant (or maybe two plants) of Melancholy Thistle has appeared there. A tall, thornless thistle with big purple heads, Melancholy Thistle (Cirsium heterophyllum) is a rather rare species of damp places on northern hills and mountains and forests. Although it has a sad name, it was not given that name because it made people sad but because the cheerful sight of its big, bright heads was considered good for melancholy!

It was almost certainly introduced with stone or limestone chippings (it grows on the Derbyshire limestones) when the new footbridge was built. It is not, of course, a native species here. But since no-one deliberately introduced it, it counts as a "wild" flower for botanical record purposes.So it has now been accepted as a proper Cheshire record - and Dingle Bridge is now one of only three known sites in Cheshire for this plant. (The other two are  thought to be a site in the eastern hills where Melancholy Thistle is a native species, and another "accidental" site in the middle of Delamere Forest.) - George

Town Hall Clock!

And one more new flower was found to be a rather pretty feature of the trail past Dingle lake in April. beside the path there grows a small carpet of that odd little plant, Moschatel or Town Hall Clock. I understand Roger Foden has photographed it. His images and more on the Trails will appear soon in Sandbach Town Talk. get ready for your copy!  George

Spring flowers!

The new Sandbach Bridges Trail (North) is really the nicest of our Trails at this time of year. Its wildlife is especially attractive in spring. There are, of course, the carpets of golden Lesser Celandines which flower right along the valley, particularly near the roundabout, near Brook Bridge and along the new path right beside the bypass.
But an organised  stroll today by a few members of the 'Friends of A Rocha in Sandbach' group discovered quite a bit more. We looked over the upstream parapet of Brook Bridge to see if one of the resident pair of Grey Wagtails was in sight along the stream, but saw none. But then at the bottom of Front Street some slightly unfamiliar birdsong caught our attention and we looked up. On the roof of the end house of the street, a remarkably fine-looking male Grey Wagtail was perched on the ridge tiles and serenading his mate, who was looking up at him from lower down the roof. His black bib was so well marked that for a moment I wondered if he was one of the foreign subspecies which has a black head.
Sadly the uncommon Black Spleenwort fern that grows in the wall at the same spot appeared rather sorry for itself - perhaps frosted?
But when we set off over the fine new footbridge, things looked up dramatically. A pair of Nuthatches and later a Chiffchaff were nice finds. Alongside the new path there are now lovely carpets of Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage, a wild flower that thrives in the willow marsh near Dingle Lake. Further along were some rather magnificent clumps of Marsh Marigold, which grows amongst a mesh of fallen branches and sticks.
But the best surprise was still to come. On the right hand of the path, between it and the bypass, a couple of bends before the bypass river bridge, I noticed a curious scattering of little light green objects. Looking closer, they turned out to the the flowerheads of a colony of that curious plant Moschatel, otherwise known (from its square head of flowers) as 'Town Hall Clock'. This is not rare but in my experience is rarely noticed; in the Sandbach area I can only recall meeting it once before, near Wheelock. This is evidence that the new Trail certainly (and carefully) passes through some lovely country.
The only downside of this discovery is that I shall clearly have to amend the new (online downloadable) guide to the Sandbach Bridges Trail (North). That may not be done for a little while; but I thought any readers of this blog might like to know about our new botanical discovery while the plant is still in flower. But I suggest you look Moschatel up in a flower book before you go to find it, and remember that it is small, so that you can locate it. Then just enjoy!  George Hill     

Ongoing projects

Today saw the AGM of the Sandbach Woodland and Wildlife Group, and a Powerpoint display (compiled by Roger Foden) of the amazing work of the Group over the last five years. The Sandbach Bridges Trails, north and south, are now complete (including the brilliant footbridge on the former), and so is the loop around Dingle Meadow. This year's targets, described by Dick Macaulay, include the new path through Filter Bed Wood, and a link to planned new paths through Offley Wood. Watch this space! And look forward to walking them - perhaps when the weather is a little better. 2018 is go!

New Trail Opening!

This Saturday, 14th October, sees the formal opening of the new Sandbach Bridges Trail (North), which follows a route from the bypass roundabout north along Arclid Brook and complements the Sandbach Bridges Trail (South) from the same starting point to Wheelock, and was opened in 2015.
The official opening  of Dingle Wood Bridge and Trail by Fiona Bruce MP will be on Saturday 14th October at 11.00 am. It will be followed by a Children in Need Countryfile Ramble which will follow the new Trail, followed by a return route which will also visit the new path at The Dingle.The length of this walk is approximately one mile. A map of the route of the walk on Saturday, prepared by Roger Foden, appears below. See you there? In addition, new links to this and both the other Trails now appear in the panel to the right - download them for free!

New Year new paths

This is more news from SWWG. (Apologies if you earlier received a post to the Sandbach A Rocha UK blog / Sandbach Environment Trail - that has been deleted again - it was posted to the wrong blog!)
A walk around Filter Bed Wood showed how rich it is in fungi, as we looked at the routes for the new path(s).
The path up the west side of Old Mill Road is nearly complete and will become part of the Sandbach Bridges Trail (North) nature trail booklet, when that has been written.
The paths on the east side of the bypass might become a further part of that or might become yet another new trail guide! Watch this space!
Interesting records last year from the Offley Wood/Filter Bed Wood area included (during ecological survey) what appear to be the only records of Leisler's Bat in Cheshire last year. The Cheshire Bat Group does not know of others. We are strongly emphasizing the importance of the area to bats, especially the great old crack willows.
The golden saxifrage by Arclid Brook is nearly in flower - spring is nearly here!
George

New Year new ways

The Sandbach Woodland and Wildlife Group is busy! In case you didn't know (and especially if you would like to help), new woodland walks  are being created at The Dingle, alongside the Sandbach bypass on the Dingle Lake side, and soon along near the bypass on the opposite (Filter Bed Wood) side.

The working party at The Dingle has more or less finished the new little circular path there. The fragment of ancient meadow has been extended by bramble clearance and we are now waiting to see what may spring up in the spring!

This area is the home of a small colony of native Bulbous Buttercups. These are recognisable by the sepals underneath the petals, which bend down rather than up as in most buttercups (see picture). They also grow on the grassland near Park House Drive which still retains its historic pasture flora.
And we will also see what seeds may germinate from long buried seedbanks in the cleared areas.

Roll on, spring!    George Hill

The new guide is here!

See on right for a link to the new Trail guide

Crayfish arrive

A long time since the last entry! A guided walk down the Brook Wood trail and valley on Sunday had a wet end, but to our surprise turned up a new species. It was not a particularly desirable one; but an American signal crayfish (that's the invasive species) in the brook above Dancing Bridge was at least a proof (along with a shoal of young Rudd swiming above it) that the brook is in good health. George.