It’s your Belfast Hills: The Partnership brings together statutory bodies with a role to play in the Belfast Hills, including Belfast City Council, Antrim & Newtownabbey Borough Council and Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council. These representatives are joined by people from the farming, community, commercial, recreation and environmental sectors. All have pledged to work together to benefit the Belfast Hills. Charity No: XR70288 Company No: NI053189Address: 9 Social Economy Village, Hannahstown Hill, Belfast, BT17 OXST: 028 9060 3466 • F: 028 9030 9867 • E: info@belfasthills.org • www.belfasthills.org

People power is boosting wildlife in the Belfast Hills

Local communities are forging the way forward for the Belfast

Hills by working together on tangible improvements for

wildlife.Community groups, environmental organisations, farmers, councils, local businesses and government are all

making positive changes with the help of individual

site operators and of course the hard work and efforts of the

Belfast Hills Partnership, staff and volunteers.

The hills are teeming with wildlife - and even some of our most iconic species are thriving here despite the local, global and national threats that often signal a downward spiral for biodiversity.The way in which our hills are farmed, usually with young cattle being born and raised over the summer on the Hills, means that we have low impact farming which leaves room for Irish Hares, Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, birds of prey and orchids, not to mention clean rivers with lots of river insects, Salmon, Trout and Dippers right down into our urban areas.Lots of places in the Hills have pockets of woodland, hedgerows, meadows and waterways with plenty of associated butterflies, birds, plants and animals.Collabaration means threats to the Hills can be managed and prepared for, says Partnership Manager Jim Bradley.“When you look at how to manage a set of hills, it allows you to take a much broader brush approach which shows the way forward to deal with threats such as invasive species or new tree diseases, like Ash dieback, which can seem unstoppable in their advance.“Because these are uplands with colder, wetter conditions and poorer soils, there may not be as many birds or

mammals in the richer lowlands. But it’s precisely these harsh conditions that mean we have rarities and specialised plants and animals suited to our more extreme conditions,” said Jim.“The fact that these rarities are on Belfast’s doorstep is a bonus for those who want to experience or learn about our local environment and manage that access properly.”He added that people and groups working together are having a positive effect, through Belfast Hills Partnership volunteers and wildlife projects.“This is a good news story, certainly in terms of gathering forces to make a difference on the ground through our active community groups and people volunteering their time and effort out on the ground.”Thanks to the financial support from Northern Ireland Environment Agency (shortly to become part of the Department of Agriculture Environment and Rural Affairs) BHP can continue to survey and protect our priority species and rarities special to the Belfast Hills.

SALMON LEAPING: The Belfast Hills are

teeming with wildlife and efforts by the

Belfast Hills Partnership are providing clean

rivers for salmon and trout

SMALL FRY: Jo Boylan from the Belfast Hills

Partnership with just some of the

schoolchildren who have been growing fish eggs

in their classrooms and releasing baby salmon

and trout into the rivers of the Belfast Hills

Thanks to our fantastic group of reliable and experienced volunteers we have been achieving our local biodiversity action plan targets for gathering data, as well as protecting, enhancing and creating priority habitats throughout the Belfast Hills.

Surveys last summer included training in identification of food plants for locally important species such as the Cryptic Wood White butterfly, Narrow-bordered 5 Spot Burnet moth and Lattice Heath moth. We then selectively collected seed from some of these food plant species such as Bush Vetch and Bird’s- foot Trefoil at Slievenacloy.

We also surveyed hedgerows for their species diversity and found several which scored high enough to rate as a priority habitat. The hedges on Wolfhill Road and Monagh Wood were particularly good. This has been followed up by hedgerow planting to gap up the missing links in the wildlife corridors that crisscross the Hills - Over a mile has been planted this winter!

More recently the volunteers have undertaken GPS and GIS training and a winter tree identification course. This knowledge will be put into action surveying woodland and hedges for percentage of Ash trees so as we can determine the effect of

Ash dieback when it strikes. This will be followed up with a course in identifying and reporting tree diseases.

Other up-and-coming training and tasks involve surveying for newts, a bird identification course and a butterfly survey on Black Mountain. It is a busy itinerary, with lots of opportunity for fresh air, exercise, good craic and a chance to help protect and enhance the precious biodiversity in the Hills.

If you would be interested in joining the team please visit our website or contact Lisa on Mob: 07950620924 or Email: lisa.critchley@belfasthills.org

Our Belfast Hills have many hidden places with great shows of wildflowers every summer.

Many of our wildflowers have their own local genetic identity so it is important we use local seed when sowing new meadows in the Hills.

Last Autumn we supported a project run by True Harvest Seeds collecting wildflower seed to send to Kew Gardens for their national seed bank.

In return they advised us on how to collect local seed for propagation.

Although this is often just a few seeds as a first trail, we have stuck to strict guidelines in terms of seeking landowners permission, collecting just a small proportion of the available seed, trying to take from more than one site and ensuring that all is recorded properly.

We collect the wildflower seed either by hand or using suction- a leaf blower in reverse. The seed can then be sown straight onto new bare sites or dried and stored for future use.

We now are anxiously awaiting shoots popping up from various seedtrays and beds - something that can be notoriously hit and miss. The plan is to grow these on to seed again and top them up with new seed collected from

the hills. We have concentrated on plants we know are great for butterflies and moths such as Greater Bird’s-foot Trefoil and vetches, as well as others such as Meadowsweet and Herb Bennet. We have also been propagating Common Spotted Orchid by root division for some years now with plants going out to sites at Carnmoney and Aughrim.

Using all these techniques and plenty of elbow grease from our volunteers, we hope to not just hold on to the wildflowers that we, have but to make sure we have more wildflowers on more sites for more wildlife and people to enjoy.

A rare orchid that mimics certain types of bees has been flourishing just yards from a housing estate, thanks to the work of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and Belfast Hills Partnership.

After carrying out surveys along urban wildlife sites in 2014, Partnership staff discovered a patch of land where Bee Orchids were growing.

After informing the landowner and working out slight tweaks in the way the site was managed, we came back last year to discover that numbers of this amazing plant had gone from 19 to 136, making it a really significant site.

The exciting discovery was made on a dry, relatively bare slope close to the estate.

The land was one of many that survey volunteers had been monitoring to establish the presence of interesting plants such as vetches, trefoils and Common Spotted Orchids.

The studies are vital in conservation terms because such plants in turn attract wildlife to these areas.

The wildlife are there because these sites are often hidden from view, unused and forgotten.

The Belfast Hills contain many small sections of wildlife-attracting patches and strips of land including river banks, woodland and rough ‘waste’ ground.

Amazingly these areas can contain as rich a variety of native habitat as you would expect to see on a nature reserve.

These wildlife honey spots are potentially great places to involve schools and local people in helping protect the sites and to appreciate the abundance of fascinating nature we have on our doorstep.

“We have to be very careful not just about how the site is managed, but

how significant these figures are,” said project officer Judy Meharg.

“While these numbers show this is a great site, Bee Orchids are notorious for having good years and then almost totally disappearing, seemingly almost on a whim, in following years. That’s why it’s particularly important to keep monitoring in the long term to ensure we manage the site right for these great plants through good years and bad.”

Gerard Daye, of Mount Eagles Drive action group said: “I think it’s fantastic that these orchids have been found in a housing estate. It makes local people think about our own green patches differently and work out what we all can do to improve our local area for wildlife and people.”

Kings and queens

of all they surveyMarsh Cinquefoil

Carnmoney Hill

Tufted Vetch

Ballymacward Primary School near Lisburn is the latest school to get involved in the Partnership’s highly successful salmon in the classroom project.

The school’s pupils raised several hundred juvenile salmon in their class earlier this year.

They then released the baby fish into the Colin River in the hope that they will eventually return there to spawn.

School principal Brendan Sadlier said the class had enjoyed the project and it had brought the curriculum to life.

Any river with the right pools, gravel beds and consistently good

water quality will be able to support salmon or trout.

When we think of salmon most of us will either think of tins of salmon in the kitchen cupboard or fish swimming through beautiful wild rivers of pristine mountain water.

But many of the rivers flowing from the Belfast Hills have very high quality water and river beds in at least the upper stretches. Indeed some of the urban rivers will have good fish populations down the whole length to the Lagan River and the sea.

When we look in more detail at the upper stretches, we find the water full of insects and other creepy

crawlies which prove how rich in wildlife these areas are.

This isn’t just by chance - the different ways in which the uplands are carefully managed by farmers, commercial operators and environmental organisations all add up to maintain high water quality and the presence of salmon and trout is proof that we’re getting some things right.

Get signed up to our E-NewsletterTo receive updates and events go to www.belfasthills.org and click on ‘sign up for our E-Newsletter’. Become our Friend! - Why not support the Partnership by becoming a Friend of the Belfast Hills? Get free entry to most events and enjoy other benefits for just £10 a year. Details are on our homepage. We’re at ‘Belfast Hills Partnership’ on Facebook, ‘Belfast Hills’ on Twitter and ‘Belfasthills’ on YouTube!

RIVER PIONEERS: Pupils of Ballymacward

primary school release the salmon they have

reared in their classroom into the Colin River

GONE FISHING: The children from Ballymacward primary school down by the riverside putting their

salmon into the Colin River

The Cryptic Wood White, an iconic and rare butterfly, is being monitored in the Belfast Hills.

Although it has often been recorded around old quarries and rough grassland sites in the Belfast Hills, no concerted efforts had ever been made to establish just where this lovely butterfly is locally distributed in the Belfast Hills.

Over the last couple of years the Belfast Hills Partnership has worked with Butterfly Conservation volunteers to identify strongholds for this iconic insect and have found it in an array of sites across the Hills - but never in very large numbers.

At least one site has been identified as a good spot to regularly survey as part of a national monitoring project, but we also want to try to encourage Wood Whites by looking at what we can do to enhance other areas.

We can do this by providing new food plants for the caterpillars, encouraging nectar plants for the adults and gleaning advice from the experts to do our best to improve grasslands and old quarries.

That way we can provide just the right conditions to at least hold on

to this special inhabitant of the Hills.

Plenty of other butterflies, moths and insects also rely on these conditions so we hope to see populations going in the right direction.

As a caterpillar, Cryptic Wood White feed on trefoil and vetch plants which tend to grow in poor, open ground typical of abandoned quarry works, scrubby grassland and old dry hedgerows.

It is a weak flyer which will sit tight in vegetation when it’s windy or overcast and suddenly appear when the wind dies down and the sun comes out.

“Years ago any good butterfly book would describe the Wood White butterfly as an insect which is found in woodland margins, however those in Ireland tended to be found on grasslands,” said Jim Bradley, Belfast Hills Partnership manager.

“This anomaly was simply accepted as a local difference, but perhaps we should have realised that something else was going on.

“Modern genetics eventually showed that our local Cryptic Wood

White was a completely different species whose rarity makes it a priority,” he said.

SPECIES FOCU

S

WINGED CREATURE: The lovely wood white butterfly is revealing itself to be a separate species in Ireland than it’s British counterpart

Salmon in the classroom teaches this hidden side to hills’ wildlife.

The Partnership has been carrying out the project across parts of Belfast to directly involve school children in rearing either salmon or trout fry right in their own classroom and then releasing them into their local rivers. “Salmon are ideal animals for the children to raise in this way” said outreach officer Jo Boylan.

“We bring in eggs within a small tank inside a glass-fronted fridge and over a few weeks in spring the kids watch them hatch.

“Although they are swimming they still carry an egg sac so they don’t even need to be fed. We come in to check once a week and to change the water, and once the egg sac has disappeared they’re ready to go into their nearest local river.”

The classes are then brought out to a suitable access point along the river, they firstly check the water for all the invertebrates which the fish will rely on for food, then carefully release them into the river which will be their home for years to come.

So, while much of our wildlife is under pressure, we should be aware that the hills still have plenty to protect, nurture and enjoy.

Salmon and Trout in the classroom

RECONNECTING OUR HAWTHORN HEDGEROWSMajor efforts are underway to preserve the ancient hawthorn hedgerows that are not only an iconic part of the Hill’s landscape character but are an invaluable wildlife habitat. They traverse the hill slopes and link the countryside to the city below. 323 km in in total!

But a closer look reveals thick, healthy hedges on the lower slopes, thining and deteriorating higher towards the summits.

The result is rows of single, twisted and windswept hedges on the higher regions.

This means the hedge network that provides homes for our birds, insects and mammals higher up in the Hills, is prone to deteriorate if not regularly maintained.

The Belfast Hills Partnership has conducted aerial and ground surveys to map out our hedges.

From this data, we now know where best to plant in order to join up hedgerow and woodland areas that will make survival rates better for our birds, bats and insects.

The initiative shows how important it is to manage our hedgerows at a landscape scale rather than a field-by-field basis.

Key areas we are reconnecting over the next few winters, are the top of Boomer’s Hill and Upper Hightown Road.

Expect to see our volunteer teams planting new lengths of hedges at these and other sites. You can even join them helping out to preserve the Hill’s hedgerows for generations to come by volunteering with us.

With the inevitable arrival of Ash dieback we are trying to pre-empt its effect on the hills and decide what we can do to minimize its impact.

The disease causes leaf loss, lesions on the bark and dieback of the crown. It is spread by spores from the fruiting bodies of the fungus on dead leaves.

Experts estimate that most of our Ash trees across the north of Ireland will be infected within the next 10 years.

The effect of loosing our Ash trees will be significant, not only as it is our most common hedgerow and woodland tree but because it supports over 100 species. As part of a pre Ash dieback strategy, the Belfast Hills Partnership has been establishing the percentage of Ash in the Hills.

Much of our old ‘estate’ woodland in the Belfast Hills contains a 20 to 30 per cent mix of Ash - our most common woodland and hedgerow tree that supports over 100 species.

In other places, single species plantations of Ash were planted in the past and these could disappear completely if hit by the disease.

We are working with landowners like the Woodland Trust and National Trust to take the most appropriate courses of action for each site.

You can help reduce its spread by learning how to identify it and reporting it to the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) by calling 0300 2007 847 or emailing planthealth@dardni.gov.uk.

You can also help when visiting the countryside by cleaning footwear, walking obvious paths, and never taking plants or cuttings home or dumping garden waste in the countryside.

The Woodland Trust has a handy pocket-sized guide to help identify Ash dieback. Alternatively go to www.treecheck.net.

For more information check https://www.dardni.gov.uk/publications/tree-health-biosecurity-poster

Ballymacward Primary School near Lisburn is the latest school to get involved in the Partnership’s highly successful salmon in the classroom project.

The school’s pupils raised several hundred juvenile salmon in their class earlier this year.

They then released the baby fish into the Colin River in the hope that they will eventually return there to spawn.

School principal Brendan Sadlier said the class had enjoyed the project and it had brought the curriculum to life.

Any river with the right pools, gravel beds and consistently good

water quality will be able to support salmon or trout.

When we think of salmon most of us will either think of tins of salmon in the kitchen cupboard or fish swimming through beautiful wild rivers of pristine mountain water.

But many of the rivers flowing from the Belfast Hills have very high quality water and river beds in at least the upper stretches. Indeed some of the urban rivers will have good fish populations down the whole length to the Lagan River and the sea.

When we look in more detail at the upper stretches, we find the water full of insects and other creepy

crawlies which prove how rich in wildlife these areas are.

This isn’t just by chance - the different ways in which the uplands are carefully managed by farmers, commercial operators and environmental organisations all add up to maintain high water quality and the presence of salmon and trout is proof that we’re getting some things right.

Get signed up to our E-NewsletterTo receive updates and events go to www.belfasthills.org and click on ‘sign up for our E-Newsletter’. Become our Friend! - Why not support the Partnership by becoming a Friend of the Belfast Hills? Get free entry to most events and enjoy other benefits for just £10 a year. Details are on our homepage. We’re at ‘Belfast Hills Partnership’ on Facebook, ‘Belfast Hills’ on Twitter and ‘Belfasthills’ on YouTube!

RIVER PIONEERS: Pupils of Ballymacward

primary school release the salmon they have

reared in their classroom into the Colin River

GONE FISHING: The children from Ballymacward primary school down by the riverside putting their

salmon into the Colin River

The Cryptic Wood White, an iconic and rare butterfly, is being monitored in the Belfast Hills.

Although it has often been recorded around old quarries and rough grassland sites in the Belfast Hills, no concerted efforts had ever been made to establish just where this lovely butterfly is locally distributed in the Belfast Hills.

Over the last couple of years the Belfast Hills Partnership has worked with Butterfly Conservation volunteers to identify strongholds for this iconic insect and have found it in an array of sites across the Hills - but never in very large numbers.

At least one site has been identified as a good spot to regularly survey as part of a national monitoring project, but we also want to try to encourage Wood Whites by looking at what we can do to enhance other areas.

We can do this by providing new food plants for the caterpillars, encouraging nectar plants for the adults and gleaning advice from the experts to do our best to improve grasslands and old quarries.

That way we can provide just the right conditions to at least hold on

to this special inhabitant of the Hills.

Plenty of other butterflies, moths and insects also rely on these conditions so we hope to see populations going in the right direction.

As a caterpillar, Cryptic Wood White feed on trefoil and vetch plants which tend to grow in poor, open ground typical of abandoned quarry works, scrubby grassland and old dry hedgerows.

It is a weak flyer which will sit tight in vegetation when it’s windy or overcast and suddenly appear when the wind dies down and the sun comes out.

“Years ago any good butterfly book would describe the Wood White butterfly as an insect which is found in woodland margins, however those in Ireland tended to be found on grasslands,” said Jim Bradley, Belfast Hills Partnership manager.

“This anomaly was simply accepted as a local difference, but perhaps we should have realised that something else was going on.

“Modern genetics eventually showed that our local Cryptic Wood

White was a completely different species whose rarity makes it a priority,” he said.

SPECIES FOCU

S

WINGED CREATURE: The lovely wood white butterfly is revealing itself to be a separate species in Ireland than it’s British counterpart

Salmon in the classroom teaches this hidden side to hills’ wildlife.

The Partnership has been carrying out the project across parts of Belfast to directly involve school children in rearing either salmon or trout fry right in their own classroom and then releasing them into their local rivers. “Salmon are ideal animals for the children to raise in this way” said outreach officer Jo Boylan.

“We bring in eggs within a small tank inside a glass-fronted fridge and over a few weeks in spring the kids watch them hatch.

“Although they are swimming they still carry an egg sac so they don’t even need to be fed. We come in to check once a week and to change the water, and once the egg sac has disappeared they’re ready to go into their nearest local river.”

The classes are then brought out to a suitable access point along the river, they firstly check the water for all the invertebrates which the fish will rely on for food, then carefully release them into the river which will be their home for years to come.

So, while much of our wildlife is under pressure, we should be aware that the hills still have plenty to protect, nurture and enjoy.

Salmon and Trout in the classroom

RECONNECTING OUR HAWTHORN HEDGEROWSMajor efforts are underway to preserve the ancient hawthorn hedgerows that are not only an iconic part of the Hill’s landscape character but are an invaluable wildlife habitat. They traverse the hill slopes and link the countryside to the city below. 323 km in in total!

But a closer look reveals thick, healthy hedges on the lower slopes, thining and deteriorating higher towards the summits.

The result is rows of single, twisted and windswept hedges on the higher regions.

This means the hedge network that provides homes for our birds, insects and mammals higher up in the Hills, is prone to deteriorate if not regularly maintained.

The Belfast Hills Partnership has conducted aerial and ground surveys to map out our hedges.

From this data, we now know where best to plant in order to join up hedgerow and woodland areas that will make survival rates better for our birds, bats and insects.

The initiative shows how important it is to manage our hedgerows at a landscape scale rather than a field-by-field basis.

Key areas we are reconnecting over the next few winters, are the top of Boomer’s Hill and Upper Hightown Road.

Expect to see our volunteer teams planting new lengths of hedges at these and other sites. You can even join them helping out to preserve the Hill’s hedgerows for generations to come by volunteering with us.

With the inevitable arrival of Ash dieback we are trying to pre-empt its effect on the hills and decide what we can do to minimize its impact.

The disease causes leaf loss, lesions on the bark and dieback of the crown. It is spread by spores from the fruiting bodies of the fungus on dead leaves.

Experts estimate that most of our Ash trees across the north of Ireland will be infected within the next 10 years.

The effect of loosing our Ash trees will be significant, not only as it is our most common hedgerow and woodland tree but because it supports over 100 species. As part of a pre Ash dieback strategy, the Belfast Hills Partnership has been establishing the percentage of Ash in the Hills.

Much of our old ‘estate’ woodland in the Belfast Hills contains a 20 to 30 per cent mix of Ash - our most common woodland and hedgerow tree that supports over 100 species.

In other places, single species plantations of Ash were planted in the past and these could disappear completely if hit by the disease.

We are working with landowners like the Woodland Trust and National Trust to take the most appropriate courses of action for each site.

You can help reduce its spread by learning how to identify it and reporting it to the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) by calling 0300 2007 847 or emailing planthealth@dardni.gov.uk.

You can also help when visiting the countryside by cleaning footwear, walking obvious paths, and never taking plants or cuttings home or dumping garden waste in the countryside.

The Woodland Trust has a handy pocket-sized guide to help identify Ash dieback. Alternatively go to www.treecheck.net.

For more information check https://www.dardni.gov.uk/publications/tree-health-biosecurity-poster

Ballymacward Primary School near Lisburn is the latest school to get involved in the Partnership’s highly successful salmon in the classroom project.

The school’s pupils raised several hundred juvenile salmon in their class earlier this year.

They then released the baby fish into the Colin River in the hope that they will eventually return there to spawn.

School principal Brendan Sadlier said the class had enjoyed the project and it had brought the curriculum to life.

Any river with the right pools, gravel beds and consistently good

water quality will be able to support salmon or trout.

When we think of salmon most of us will either think of tins of salmon in the kitchen cupboard or fish swimming through beautiful wild rivers of pristine mountain water.

But many of the rivers flowing from the Belfast Hills have very high quality water and river beds in at least the upper stretches. Indeed some of the urban rivers will have good fish populations down the whole length to the Lagan River and the sea.

When we look in more detail at the upper stretches, we find the water full of insects and other creepy

crawlies which prove how rich in wildlife these areas are.

This isn’t just by chance - the different ways in which the uplands are carefully managed by farmers, commercial operators and environmental organisations all add up to maintain high water quality and the presence of salmon and trout is proof that we’re getting some things right.

Get signed up to our E-NewsletterTo receive updates and events go to www.belfasthills.org and click on ‘sign up for our E-Newsletter’. Become our Friend! - Why not support the Partnership by becoming a Friend of the Belfast Hills? Get free entry to most events and enjoy other benefits for just £10 a year. Details are on our homepage. We’re at ‘Belfast Hills Partnership’ on Facebook, ‘Belfast Hills’ on Twitter and ‘Belfasthills’ on YouTube!

RIVER PIONEERS: Pupils of Ballymacward

primary school release the salmon they have

reared in their classroom into the Colin River

GONE FISHING: The children from Ballymacward primary school down by the riverside putting their

salmon into the Colin River

The Cryptic Wood White, an iconic and rare butterfly, is being monitored in the Belfast Hills.

Although it has often been recorded around old quarries and rough grassland sites in the Belfast Hills, no concerted efforts had ever been made to establish just where this lovely butterfly is locally distributed in the Belfast Hills.

Over the last couple of years the Belfast Hills Partnership has worked with Butterfly Conservation volunteers to identify strongholds for this iconic insect and have found it in an array of sites across the Hills - but never in very large numbers.

At least one site has been identified as a good spot to regularly survey as part of a national monitoring project, but we also want to try to encourage Wood Whites by looking at what we can do to enhance other areas.

We can do this by providing new food plants for the caterpillars, encouraging nectar plants for the adults and gleaning advice from the experts to do our best to improve grasslands and old quarries.

That way we can provide just the right conditions to at least hold on

to this special inhabitant of the Hills.

Plenty of other butterflies, moths and insects also rely on these conditions so we hope to see populations going in the right direction.

As a caterpillar, Cryptic Wood White feed on trefoil and vetch plants which tend to grow in poor, open ground typical of abandoned quarry works, scrubby grassland and old dry hedgerows.

It is a weak flyer which will sit tight in vegetation when it’s windy or overcast and suddenly appear when the wind dies down and the sun comes out.

“Years ago any good butterfly book would describe the Wood White butterfly as an insect which is found in woodland margins, however those in Ireland tended to be found on grasslands,” said Jim Bradley, Belfast Hills Partnership manager.

“This anomaly was simply accepted as a local difference, but perhaps we should have realised that something else was going on.

“Modern genetics eventually showed that our local Cryptic Wood

White was a completely different species whose rarity makes it a priority,” he said.

SPECIES FOCU

S

WINGED CREATURE: The lovely wood white butterfly is revealing itself to be a separate species in Ireland than it’s British counterpart

Salmon in the classroom teaches this hidden side to hills’ wildlife.

The Partnership has been carrying out the project across parts of Belfast to directly involve school children in rearing either salmon or trout fry right in their own classroom and then releasing them into their local rivers. “Salmon are ideal animals for the children to raise in this way” said outreach officer Jo Boylan.

“We bring in eggs within a small tank inside a glass-fronted fridge and over a few weeks in spring the kids watch them hatch.

“Although they are swimming they still carry an egg sac so they don’t even need to be fed. We come in to check once a week and to change the water, and once the egg sac has disappeared they’re ready to go into their nearest local river.”

The classes are then brought out to a suitable access point along the river, they firstly check the water for all the invertebrates which the fish will rely on for food, then carefully release them into the river which will be their home for years to come.

So, while much of our wildlife is under pressure, we should be aware that the hills still have plenty to protect, nurture and enjoy.

Salmon and Trout in the classroom

RECONNECTING OUR HAWTHORN HEDGEROWSMajor efforts are underway to preserve the ancient hawthorn hedgerows that are not only an iconic part of the Hill’s landscape character but are an invaluable wildlife habitat. They traverse the hill slopes and link the countryside to the city below. 323 km in in total!

But a closer look reveals thick, healthy hedges on the lower slopes, thining and deteriorating higher towards the summits.

The result is rows of single, twisted and windswept hedges on the higher regions.

This means the hedge network that provides homes for our birds, insects and mammals higher up in the Hills, is prone to deteriorate if not regularly maintained.

The Belfast Hills Partnership has conducted aerial and ground surveys to map out our hedges.

From this data, we now know where best to plant in order to join up hedgerow and woodland areas that will make survival rates better for our birds, bats and insects.

The initiative shows how important it is to manage our hedgerows at a landscape scale rather than a field-by-field basis.

Key areas we are reconnecting over the next few winters, are the top of Boomer’s Hill and Upper Hightown Road.

Expect to see our volunteer teams planting new lengths of hedges at these and other sites. You can even join them helping out to preserve the Hill’s hedgerows for generations to come by volunteering with us.

With the inevitable arrival of Ash dieback we are trying to pre-empt its effect on the hills and decide what we can do to minimize its impact.

The disease causes leaf loss, lesions on the bark and dieback of the crown. It is spread by spores from the fruiting bodies of the fungus on dead leaves.

Experts estimate that most of our Ash trees across the north of Ireland will be infected within the next 10 years.

The effect of loosing our Ash trees will be significant, not only as it is our most common hedgerow and woodland tree but because it supports over 100 species. As part of a pre Ash dieback strategy, the Belfast Hills Partnership has been establishing the percentage of Ash in the Hills.

Much of our old ‘estate’ woodland in the Belfast Hills contains a 20 to 30 per cent mix of Ash - our most common woodland and hedgerow tree that supports over 100 species.

In other places, single species plantations of Ash were planted in the past and these could disappear completely if hit by the disease.

We are working with landowners like the Woodland Trust and National Trust to take the most appropriate courses of action for each site.

You can help reduce its spread by learning how to identify it and reporting it to the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) by calling 0300 2007 847 or emailing planthealth@dardni.gov.uk.

You can also help when visiting the countryside by cleaning footwear, walking obvious paths, and never taking plants or cuttings home or dumping garden waste in the countryside.

The Woodland Trust has a handy pocket-sized guide to help identify Ash dieback. Alternatively go to www.treecheck.net.

For more information check https://www.dardni.gov.uk/publications/tree-health-biosecurity-poster

It’s your Belfast Hills: The Partnership brings together statutory bodies with a role to play in the Belfast Hills, including Belfast City Council, Antrim & Newtownabbey Borough Council and Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council. These representatives are joined by people from the farming, community, commercial, recreation and environmental sectors. All have pledged to work together to benefit the Belfast Hills. Charity No: XR70288 Company No: NI053189Address: 9 Social Economy Village, Hannahstown Hill, Belfast, BT17 OXST: 028 9060 3466 • F: 028 9030 9867 • E: info@belfasthills.org • www.belfasthills.org

People power is boosting wildlife in the Belfast Hills

Local communities are forging the way forward for the Belfast

Hills by working together on tangible improvements for

wildlife.Community groups, environmental organisations, farmers, councils, local businesses and government are all

making positive changes with the help of individual

site operators and of course the hard work and efforts of the

Belfast Hills Partnership, staff and volunteers.

The hills are teeming with wildlife - and even some of our most iconic species are thriving here despite the local, global and national threats that often signal a downward spiral for biodiversity.The way in which our hills are farmed, usually with young cattle being born and raised over the summer on the Hills, means that we have low impact farming which leaves room for Irish Hares, Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, birds of prey and orchids, not to mention clean rivers with lots of river insects, Salmon, Trout and Dippers right down into our urban areas.Lots of places in the Hills have pockets of woodland, hedgerows, meadows and waterways with plenty of associated butterflies, birds, plants and animals.Collabaration means threats to the Hills can be managed and prepared for, says Partnership Manager Jim Bradley.“When you look at how to manage a set of hills, it allows you to take a much broader brush approach which shows the way forward to deal with threats such as invasive species or new tree diseases, like Ash dieback, which can seem unstoppable in their advance.“Because these are uplands with colder, wetter conditions and poorer soils, there may not be as many birds or

mammals in the richer lowlands. But it’s precisely these harsh conditions that mean we have rarities and specialised plants and animals suited to our more extreme conditions,” said Jim.“The fact that these rarities are on Belfast’s doorstep is a bonus for those who want to experience or learn about our local environment and manage that access properly.”He added that people and groups working together are having a positive effect, through Belfast Hills Partnership volunteers and wildlife projects.“This is a good news story, certainly in terms of gathering forces to make a difference on the ground through our active community groups and people volunteering their time and effort out on the ground.”Thanks to the financial support from Northern Ireland Environment Agency (shortly to become part of the Department of Agriculture Environment and Rural Affairs) BHP can continue to survey and protect our priority species and rarities special to the Belfast Hills.

SALMON LEAPING: The Belfast Hills are

teeming with wildlife and efforts by the

Belfast Hills Partnership are providing clean

rivers for salmon and trout

SMALL FRY: Jo Boylan from the Belfast Hills

Partnership with just some of the

schoolchildren who have been growing fish eggs

in their classrooms and releasing baby salmon

and trout into the rivers of the Belfast Hills

Thanks to our fantastic group of reliable and experienced volunteers we have been achieving our local biodiversity action plan targets for gathering data, as well as protecting, enhancing and creating priority habitats throughout the Belfast Hills.

Surveys last summer included training in identification of food plants for locally important species such as the Cryptic Wood White butterfly, Narrow-bordered 5 Spot Burnet moth and Lattice Heath moth. We then selectively collected seed from some of these food plant species such as Bush Vetch and Bird’s- foot Trefoil at Slievenacloy.

We also surveyed hedgerows for their species diversity and found several which scored high enough to rate as a priority habitat. The hedges on Wolfhill Road and Monagh Wood were particularly good. This has been followed up by hedgerow planting to gap up the missing links in the wildlife corridors that crisscross the Hills - Over a mile has been planted this winter!

More recently the volunteers have undertaken GPS and GIS training and a winter tree identification course. This knowledge will be put into action surveying woodland and hedges for percentage of Ash trees so as we can determine the effect of

Ash dieback when it strikes. This will be followed up with a course in identifying and reporting tree diseases.

Other up-and-coming training and tasks involve surveying for newts, a bird identification course and a butterfly survey on Black Mountain. It is a busy itinerary, with lots of opportunity for fresh air, exercise, good craic and a chance to help protect and enhance the precious biodiversity in the Hills.

If you would be interested in joining the team please visit our website or contact Lisa on Mob: 07950620924 or Email: lisa.critchley@belfasthills.org

Our Belfast Hills have many hidden places with great shows of wildflowers every summer.

Many of our wildflowers have their own local genetic identity so it is important we use local seed when sowing new meadows in the Hills.

Last Autumn we supported a project run by True Harvest Seeds collecting wildflower seed to send to Kew Gardens for their national seed bank.

In return they advised us on how to collect local seed for propagation.

Although this is often just a few seeds as a first trail, we have stuck to strict guidelines in terms of seeking landowners permission, collecting just a small proportion of the available seed, trying to take from more than one site and ensuring that all is recorded properly.

We collect the wildflower seed either by hand or using suction- a leaf blower in reverse. The seed can then be sown straight onto new bare sites or dried and stored for future use.

We now are anxiously awaiting shoots popping up from various seedtrays and beds - something that can be notoriously hit and miss. The plan is to grow these on to seed again and top them up with new seed collected from

the hills. We have concentrated on plants we know are great for butterflies and moths such as Greater Bird’s-foot Trefoil and vetches, as well as others such as Meadowsweet and Herb Bennet. We have also been propagating Common Spotted Orchid by root division for some years now with plants going out to sites at Carnmoney and Aughrim.

Using all these techniques and plenty of elbow grease from our volunteers, we hope to not just hold on to the wildflowers that we, have but to make sure we have more wildflowers on more sites for more wildlife and people to enjoy.

A rare orchid that mimics certain types of bees has been flourishing just yards from a housing estate, thanks to the work of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and Belfast Hills Partnership.

After carrying out surveys along urban wildlife sites in 2014, Partnership staff discovered a patch of land where Bee Orchids were growing.

After informing the landowner and working out slight tweaks in the way the site was managed, we came back last year to discover that numbers of this amazing plant had gone from 19 to 136, making it a really significant site.

The exciting discovery was made on a dry, relatively bare slope close to the estate.

The land was one of many that survey volunteers had been monitoring to establish the presence of interesting plants such as vetches, trefoils and Common Spotted Orchids.

The studies are vital in conservation terms because such plants in turn attract wildlife to these areas.

The wildlife are there because these sites are often hidden from view, unused and forgotten.

The Belfast Hills contain many small sections of wildlife-attracting patches and strips of land including river banks, woodland and rough ‘waste’ ground.

Amazingly these areas can contain as rich a variety of native habitat as you would expect to see on a nature reserve.

These wildlife honey spots are potentially great places to involve schools and local people in helping protect the sites and to appreciate the abundance of fascinating nature we have on our doorstep.

“We have to be very careful not just about how the site is managed, but

how significant these figures are,” said project officer Judy Meharg.

“While these numbers show this is a great site, Bee Orchids are notorious for having good years and then almost totally disappearing, seemingly almost on a whim, in following years. That’s why it’s particularly important to keep monitoring in the long term to ensure we manage the site right for these great plants through good years and bad.”

Gerard Daye, of Mount Eagles Drive action group said: “I think it’s fantastic that these orchids have been found in a housing estate. It makes local people think about our own green patches differently and work out what we all can do to improve our local area for wildlife and people.”

Kings and queens

of all they surveyMarsh Cinquefoil

Carnmoney Hill

Tufted Vetch

It’s your Belfast Hills: The Partnership brings together statutory bodies with a role to play in the Belfast Hills, including Belfast City Council, Antrim & Newtownabbey Borough Council and Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council. These representatives are joined by people from the farming, community, commercial, recreation and environmental sectors. All have pledged to work together to benefit the Belfast Hills. Charity No: XR70288 Company No: NI053189Address: 9 Social Economy Village, Hannahstown Hill, Belfast, BT17 OXST: 028 9060 3466 • F: 028 9030 9867 • E: info@belfasthills.org • www.belfasthills.org

People power is boosting wildlife in the Belfast Hills

Local communities are forging the way forward for the Belfast

Hills by working together on tangible improvements for

wildlife.Community groups, environmental organisations, farmers, councils, local businesses and government are all

making positive changes with the help of individual

site operators and of course the hard work and efforts of the

Belfast Hills Partnership, staff and volunteers.

The hills are teeming with wildlife - and even some of our most iconic species are thriving here despite the local, global and national threats that often signal a downward spiral for biodiversity.The way in which our hills are farmed, usually with young cattle being born and raised over the summer on the Hills, means that we have low impact farming which leaves room for Irish Hares, Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, birds of prey and orchids, not to mention clean rivers with lots of river insects, Salmon, Trout and Dippers right down into our urban areas.Lots of places in the Hills have pockets of woodland, hedgerows, meadows and waterways with plenty of associated butterflies, birds, plants and animals.Collabaration means threats to the Hills can be managed and prepared for, says Partnership Manager Jim Bradley.“When you look at how to manage a set of hills, it allows you to take a much broader brush approach which shows the way forward to deal with threats such as invasive species or new tree diseases, like Ash dieback, which can seem unstoppable in their advance.“Because these are uplands with colder, wetter conditions and poorer soils, there may not be as many birds or

mammals in the richer lowlands. But it’s precisely these harsh conditions that mean we have rarities and specialised plants and animals suited to our more extreme conditions,” said Jim.“The fact that these rarities are on Belfast’s doorstep is a bonus for those who want to experience or learn about our local environment and manage that access properly.”He added that people and groups working together are having a positive effect, through Belfast Hills Partnership volunteers and wildlife projects.“This is a good news story, certainly in terms of gathering forces to make a difference on the ground through our active community groups and people volunteering their time and effort out on the ground.”Thanks to the financial support from Northern Ireland Environment Agency (shortly to become part of the Department of Agriculture Environment and Rural Affairs) BHP can continue to survey and protect our priority species and rarities special to the Belfast Hills.

SALMON LEAPING: The Belfast Hills are

teeming with wildlife and efforts by the

Belfast Hills Partnership are providing clean

rivers for salmon and trout

SMALL FRY: Jo Boylan from the Belfast Hills

Partnership with just some of the

schoolchildren who have been growing fish eggs

in their classrooms and releasing baby salmon

and trout into the rivers of the Belfast Hills

Thanks to our fantastic group of reliable and experienced volunteers we have been achieving our local biodiversity action plan targets for gathering data, as well as protecting, enhancing and creating priority habitats throughout the Belfast Hills.

Surveys last summer included training in identification of food plants for locally important species such as the Cryptic Wood White butterfly, Narrow-bordered 5 Spot Burnet moth and Lattice Heath moth. We then selectively collected seed from some of these food plant species such as Bush Vetch and Bird’s- foot Trefoil at Slievenacloy.

We also surveyed hedgerows for their species diversity and found several which scored high enough to rate as a priority habitat. The hedges on Wolfhill Road and Monagh Wood were particularly good. This has been followed up by hedgerow planting to gap up the missing links in the wildlife corridors that crisscross the Hills - Over a mile has been planted this winter!

More recently the volunteers have undertaken GPS and GIS training and a winter tree identification course. This knowledge will be put into action surveying woodland and hedges for percentage of Ash trees so as we can determine the effect of

Ash dieback when it strikes. This will be followed up with a course in identifying and reporting tree diseases.

Other up-and-coming training and tasks involve surveying for newts, a bird identification course and a butterfly survey on Black Mountain. It is a busy itinerary, with lots of opportunity for fresh air, exercise, good craic and a chance to help protect and enhance the precious biodiversity in the Hills.

If you would be interested in joining the team please visit our website or contact Lisa on Mob: 07950620924 or Email: lisa.critchley@belfasthills.org

Our Belfast Hills have many hidden places with great shows of wildflowers every summer.

Many of our wildflowers have their own local genetic identity so it is important we use local seed when sowing new meadows in the Hills.

Last Autumn we supported a project run by True Harvest Seeds collecting wildflower seed to send to Kew Gardens for their national seed bank.

In return they advised us on how to collect local seed for propagation.

Although this is often just a few seeds as a first trail, we have stuck to strict guidelines in terms of seeking landowners permission, collecting just a small proportion of the available seed, trying to take from more than one site and ensuring that all is recorded properly.

We collect the wildflower seed either by hand or using suction- a leaf blower in reverse. The seed can then be sown straight onto new bare sites or dried and stored for future use.

We now are anxiously awaiting shoots popping up from various seedtrays and beds - something that can be notoriously hit and miss. The plan is to grow these on to seed again and top them up with new seed collected from

the hills. We have concentrated on plants we know are great for butterflies and moths such as Greater Bird’s-foot Trefoil and vetches, as well as others such as Meadowsweet and Herb Bennet. We have also been propagating Common Spotted Orchid by root division for some years now with plants going out to sites at Carnmoney and Aughrim.

Using all these techniques and plenty of elbow grease from our volunteers, we hope to not just hold on to the wildflowers that we, have but to make sure we have more wildflowers on more sites for more wildlife and people to enjoy.

A rare orchid that mimics certain types of bees has been flourishing just yards from a housing estate, thanks to the work of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and Belfast Hills Partnership.

After carrying out surveys along urban wildlife sites in 2014, Partnership staff discovered a patch of land where Bee Orchids were growing.

After informing the landowner and working out slight tweaks in the way the site was managed, we came back last year to discover that numbers of this amazing plant had gone from 19 to 136, making it a really significant site.

The exciting discovery was made on a dry, relatively bare slope close to the estate.

The land was one of many that survey volunteers had been monitoring to establish the presence of interesting plants such as vetches, trefoils and Common Spotted Orchids.

The studies are vital in conservation terms because such plants in turn attract wildlife to these areas.

The wildlife are there because these sites are often hidden from view, unused and forgotten.

The Belfast Hills contain many small sections of wildlife-attracting patches and strips of land including river banks, woodland and rough ‘waste’ ground.

Amazingly these areas can contain as rich a variety of native habitat as you would expect to see on a nature reserve.

These wildlife honey spots are potentially great places to involve schools and local people in helping protect the sites and to appreciate the abundance of fascinating nature we have on our doorstep.

“We have to be very careful not just about how the site is managed, but

how significant these figures are,” said project officer Judy Meharg.

“While these numbers show this is a great site, Bee Orchids are notorious for having good years and then almost totally disappearing, seemingly almost on a whim, in following years. That’s why it’s particularly important to keep monitoring in the long term to ensure we manage the site right for these great plants through good years and bad.”

Gerard Daye, of Mount Eagles Drive action group said: “I think it’s fantastic that these orchids have been found in a housing estate. It makes local people think about our own green patches differently and work out what we all can do to improve our local area for wildlife and people.”

Kings and queens

of all they surveyMarsh Cinquefoil

Carnmoney Hill

Tufted Vetch