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BEES Urban Nature Reserve

Working at the BEES Urban Nature Reserve
A wonderful space for wildlife near the city centre
Marsh marigold
Marsh marigold

Keep in touch with our current project Living Ponds on this page 

This project has been made possible by an award from Postcode Local Trust, a grantgiving charity funded entirely by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.

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BEES have created a small nature reserve on land rented from the University on the Laisteridge lane campus. The Reserve began life in 1990 and although it has seen several changes over the years, it still offers a wonderful space for wildlife near the city centre.

It consists of two medium sized ponds, an area of trees and wildflower rich grassland. The ponds host a large population of Brown Hawker dragonflies and several species of damselfly. Birds regularly seen include goldfinch, great tit, blue tit, long tailed tit, blackbirds and thrushes.

Our priorities for management this autumn are to remove some of the submerged and marginal vegetation to allow more open water. Unfortunately we have New Zealand Pygmy weed, an invasive non-native plant, in the pond which needs controlling. We will also manage the trees to allow more sunlight into the pond.

The Reserve offers a great opportunity for our conservation volunteer group and for local schools to visit for environmental education sessions which compliment the classroom curriculum.

See the gallery of photos.

More

Breathing Places Weekend at BEES UNR

BEES Urban Nature Reserve, Summer Activities 2009

 

Geolocation

53.785131, -1.768405

Conservation Work

Bradford Urban Nature Reserve

Bradford Urban Nature Reserve (UNR) Laisteridge Lane, Bradford BD5 0NH

We will be cutting and clearing paths to improve access as we haven't visited for a while and they are quite overgrown.

Depending how we get on, we may visit Bowling Park Orchard in the afternoon, so if you are planning to come along in the afternoon please let us know so we can keep in touch about where we are at.

Also, let us know if you would like a lift in the minibus from Culture Fusion at 10am.

Urban Nature Reserve.

Urban Nature Reserve.

We will be carrying our our annual tasks of cutting the meadows using traditional tools such as scythes and sickles and clearing the ponds of excessive plant growth.

Please get in touch if you would like to join us.

BEES Urban Nature Reserve

Laisteridge Student Village. Laisteridge Lane. BD5 0NH

10:30-3:30: Tasks include mowing the paths to improve access and removing invasive weeds such as Giant Hogweed. We also need to build some minibeast trap doors for when school groups visit.

Please get in touch if you'd like to come along.

Urban Nature Reserve

Laisteridge Lane Student Village. Laiteridge lane. BD5 0NH

We  sowed some wildflower seeds   in the meadow and planted wood anemone and dog violet plugs in the woodland and cleared  and weeded the site. 

Urban Nature Reserve.

Bradford University Campus. Laisteridge Lane.

We added some crush and run  to our prepared revetment area by the pond platform and defined paths in the woods, to reduce straying from them and erosion of the woodland.