Pond Management 9th March 2025
Darcy Lever Marshes is a new site for Bolton Conservation volunteers. The site is hidden between housing estates near Hollycroft Avenue, playing fields and Radcliffe road and if one of Bolton’s secret wildlife havens.
The marshes provide habitat for great crested newt and other amphibians, and potentially could benefit dragonflies. About 20 years ago Dave Orchard and the Amphibian and Reptile Group for South Lancashire developed the site but willow trees are now starting to take over and threatening the site’s usefulness, a process know as succession (to find out more about succession see this earlier post).
We were last here in November 2023 when BCV and Dave Orchard removed willow trees that shading ponds deeper in the marshes. As this is privately owned land we had permission to burn all of the material we cut down, on this particular site this method of disposal was preferable to making habitat piles.
This time we were working on a different pond. Trees were shading out the pond and needed cutting back, the brash produced was used to create a linear habitat pile along one edge of the pond to deter intruders
Many thanks to the site’s owner for allowing us to work on this site, Tom and Caroline for organising and everyone who took part. Photos from both tasks below.
