가장 멋진 벤틀리 폰스풋 주변 자연유산 8곳

Incredibly muddy - wear wellies!

Bilberry Hill is one of the Lickey Hills southwest of Birmingham and northeast of Worcester. Positioned above the village of Cofton Hackett, it’s an integral part of the Lickey Hills Country Park. As part of the Lickey Ridge, composed of hard quartzite this spot offers stunning views over Birmingham and the surrounding countryside. The hill derives its name from the abundant tracts of Bilberry bushes (Vaccinium myrtillus) that occupy its slopes, providing locals with a tradition of harvesting their fruit each autumn for centuries to make jams, preserves, and delightful apple and bilberry pies.

A great place to visit and wide veiws

I can literally see my house from here

You are standing in front of Jubilee Plantation. This very distinctive hill top feature was planted in the mid seventies to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II's reign and to reflect the locally famous Frankley Beeches plantation on Frankley Hill. Most of the trees in the centre of the wood are common Beech. The Beech can be a spectacular tree in its prime with a crown which might span 30 metres (32 yards) more and a trunk which could be as much as 4-5 metres (12 - 15 feet) in circumference. There are few better things in the spring than standing in a beechwood and looking up into a canopy of fresh green leaves. By May most leaves will have opened fully. When a breeze catches them they seem to shiver and tremble. Beech trees are not as good for wildlife as say a mature Oak might be but they do produce large numbers of seeds or 'mast' each autumn. These seeds are of vital importance, not only as the means by which the tree spreads its offspring but also as a food source to preying flocks of finches during the cold winter months.

Chaddesley Woods were probably mentioned in the Domesday Book as the ‘wood of two leagues’ and we think that parts of the site have been wooded since the Ice Age 6-10,000 years ago.  The presence of ancient woodland indicator species support this – flowers such as yellow archangel, herb paris and dog’s mercury as well as trees like small-leaved lime and wild service trees. Visitors to the eastern half of the nature reserve will find themselves in ancient woodland that is predominantly mature oak with hazel coppice.  The understorey also contains holly, rowan and other berry-bearing shrubs that are popular with winter thrushes such as fieldfares.  Midland hawthorn thrives here – a rare shrub that is identified by the two seeds in its berries as opposed to the normal one.  Open glades are important for invertebrates and encourage shrubby growth, which provides nesting cover for birds.  Some old and dead oaks are retained for hole-nesting birds, fungi and invertebrates.  At the right time of year the wood is full of birdsong and lucky visitors may catch a glimpse of the elusive woodcock. There are also two areas of meadow, although these are only accessible on special open days.  Hockley Meadow and Black Meadow are old pastures with wildflowers such as knapweed, dyer’s greenweed, pepper saxifrage and adder’s-tongue fern.  The meadows are grazed to maintain their floral interest. The western half of the reserve is a largely planted woodland of broad-leaved species and extensive areas of conifer.  The conifers wouldn’t normally grow here and we’re gradually clearing these and replacing them with native hardwoods that are more suitable to the local geology and attract summer migrants like chiffchaff and blackcap.  Crossbills sometimes breed in the conifer plantations – their unusual beak structure of crossed tips allows them to feed on the seeds.  A Worcestershire speciality, land caddis, occurs at Chaddesley Woods.  A national rarity, this is the only one of almost two hundred species of caddis fly that spends its entire life-cycle on land.  It burrows in leaf litter and adults only live for a couple of weeks in autumn.

Just a short walk from the car park and easily the jewel in the Lickey crown.

The car park gates shut at dusk.

Depending on which way you descend depends on where you wish to end up. All paths are worth exploring.

Waseley Hills Country Park is a nature reserve with picturesque hilltops, hedgerows, pastures and small woodlands. As well as supporting many species of flora and fauna, the reserve also affords some fantastic panoramic views over Worcestershire.

An ancient woodland with coppice and large oaks Jointly owned with Butterfly Conservation, Grafton has been at the heart of one of Worcestershire’s great conservation successes.  The wood is the centre of the only colony of brown hairstreak butterflies in the Midlands.  These elusive butterflies, on the wing in August and September, have been the subject of a long-term project to ensure their survival.  By working with local landowners and encouraging appropriate maintenance of hedgerows, volunteers from both conservation charities have helped the butterflies to increase in range and in numbers. Grafton Wood is an ancient semi-natural broad-leaved woodland and, until the 1950s was traditionally managed as coppice-with-standards that provided materials for products such as broom handles, pea sticks, hedge-laying, clothes pegs, spars for thatching and firewood.  Our management today aims to replicate this tradition and involves widening the rides through the woodland, coppicing and creating glades.  We also ensure that there are scrubby areas containing the young blackthorn bushes that are vital for brown hairstreaks to survive. The majority of the canopy at Grafton is ash and oak although we also have a small-leaved lime coppice stool that we think must have originally started as one lime tree at least a thousand years ago.  In many places there is a dense shrub layer of field maple, hawthorn and hazel.  The two compartments of conifers that were planted in the 1960s have largely been removed in 2010. It’s not just brown hairstreak butterflies that visitors to Grafton Wood should keep a look out for.  The wood is also important for other woodland butterflies including silver-washed fritillaries and white admirals.  After careful surveying of the habitat and flowering species in the wood pearl-bordered fritillaries were released into the woodland in 2011 in the hope that they would then naturally re-colonise the wood after a 30 year absence.  Notable moths include drab looper, rosy footman, Devon carpet and waved black. Many fungi have been recorded in the wood and it also supports a distinctive flora including herb-Paris, adder’s-tongue fern, violet helleborine, spurge laurel and bird’s-nest orchid.  Birds including buzzard, goldcrest, treecreeper, lesser and great spotted woodpeckers are regularly seen in the wood and the adjacent meadows and orchards are important for green woodpeckers.  Bechstein’s bats were recently discovered in the wood and the colony is thought to be the most northerly breeding roost in the UK.