Month: May 2025

Last year students from St Mary’s RC High School, Leyland made 30 bird boxes for Astley Park. The construction materials were supplied by the Friends, paid for by grants.  Chorley North West Ward Councillor Aaron Beaver kindly gave £300 from his Community Grant fund. The same amount was also generously donated by Astley Village Parish Council.

The bird boxes were made to a design approved by the RSPB. Most significantly they incorporate a metal plate around the access hole. This is so the hole can’t be made any larger by squirrels or woodpeckers. This means the boxes remain ideally suited to small birds such as wrens, blue tits and great tits. The boxes were installed in the autumn of 2024 on suitable trees in the Park’s woodlands by Chorley Council Rangers – as shown below.

Twenty students from across all age groups made the boxes in their after-school club, supervised by Technology teacher Mrs Sales. Each of the boxes are numbered according to which student made them. Recently, six of the children involved came to visit the Park accompanied by their teachers and were shown the bird boxes installed in Great Wood by Friends volunteers. It had been hoped that installing the boxes last autumn would give time for the local bird life to become accustomed to their presence and roost or nest in them. So it proved, as many of the boxes seen by the students were clearly in use on the day of their visit, with birds viewed regularly flitting in and out.

Chorley 8^th (Trinity) Brownies did a sponsored walk and raised a magnificent amount of £170 for our funds. They chose to donate to the Friends because they love going to the Park and admire the work we do to help look after it. Recently Friends Vice-Chair Julian Jackson went along to a meeting of the Brownies to talk with the children involved and receive the cheque from Brown Owl.

In return the Brownies were given individual bags of wildflower seeds and were presented with a special thank you certificate.

Thirty Year 4 pupils from St Laurence’s School recently had a highly enjoyable and informative trip down to the River Chor in Great Wood. Sam Phillips from Groundwork Wigan and Friends volunteers explained how the health of the river can be assessed. This is done by using the Riverfly technique – counting the diversity and abundance of specific invertebrate species caught in net sampling. The children also learnt how easily the river could be seriously polluted and wildlife species wiped out. A big danger in this regard is dogs getting into the river that have been treated with flea powder. This insecticide can easily wash off and damage the health of the river.

Pupils looking at the catch from net sampling.

One of four timber bridges in Great Wood recently received a re-stain by Friends’ volunteers.