April 2025 - April 2026
At Forestry England, we manage woodlands not just for timber, but for wildlife too. That includes helping threatened species like the Wood White butterfly by looking after the special habitat it needs.
Working with Butterfly Conservation, we helped to conserve local populations at Bury Ditches by creating and maintaining vital ride side habitat.
The project was kindly funded by the Conservation Fund, from Shropshire Hills National Landscapes.
Wood Whites love ride side habitat, as it’s often disturbed and has nutrient poor soil that provides ideal conditions for wildflowers to set and flourish. You can find all kinds of wildflowers and plant life in ride side habitat, but most important for the Wood White is Birds foot trefoil and Meadow vetchling, vital larval foodplants for the species, both of which are found at Bury Ditches.
The Wood White is a high priority for conservation because its numbers and range are declining. However, the Shropshire Hills are a hotspot for this species which love managed woodlands like Bury Ditches.
Over the course of the project, more than 5,900 square metres of overgrown habitat were cleared across seven patches of the Bury Ditches woodland using a roboflail. Volunteers supported additional clearance work, tackling areas of gorse and broom beyond the reach of the machinery.
The project also had a strong community and outreach aspect. Two public talks were delivered, one hosted at the Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre and another as part of Going Wild in Bishop Castle's Winter talk series, alongside appearances at two Shropshire Hills National Landscape forum events.
Local artist Sarah Jameson was commissioned to design an interpretation board for the site, now installed in the Bury Ditches car park and featuring original illustrations of the woodland and its wildlife.
With the project now complete, the team is exploring how similar conservation approaches can be applied to other sites across the Shropshire Hills that support protected species. The work comes at an encouraging moment for the Wood White more broadly, with recent reports of the butterfly appearing at new locations just over the border in Wales.