A Rhyl nature reserve is opening up brand new views of its wildlife for this year.
Over the autumn and winter months, Denbighshire County Council’s Countryside Service has continued to work on developing Brickfield Pond Nature Reserve to support local nature and the surrounding communities.
Brickfield Pond Nature Reserve was recently honoured at the Wales in Bloom 2024 awards ceremony, receiving the class ‘Thriving’ under the Wales in Bloom It’s Your Neighbourhood awards.
Countryside rangers and volunteers supported by Nature for Health have carried out work that has seen a community orchard and pond opened up, improvements to the walkways, removal of dead trees and the tidying up of the viewpoints around the main waters.
Areas have also been improved around the nature reserve to encourage more water voles to make their home at the site.
During autumn and winter, work has taken place to clear bramble in the area next to the cycle path leading into the nature reserve from the Ysgol Tir Morfa side. Dead trees were removed to allow more light into the area to support the surviving nature, new spindle and lime trees were planted and a mix of yellow rattle, red bartsia and woodland wild flower mix seeds were sown to support pollinators.
Just off the path the team has also created a habitat pile to provide food and shelter for wildlife in the area.
New viewpoints of the pond have also been opened up along the path on the south side of the nature reserve through bramble and dead tree clearance.
Countryside Ranger Vitor Evora explained how improvements were made to the first sighting of Brickfield Pond as visitors start walking the south side path from the car park.
“We did work at this view over two stages, first we cleared the bramble and tided up the dog rose, you can see the difference as before there was no grass just bramble and now you can see the grass
“We aren’t cutting everything down, we want to stress that people visiting as our local nature needs a lot of the natural areas along the path. For example there is ivy along the path and we will leave that as that makes a very good habitat area. We are just looking to remove species have died off and cut back other areas to allow plants and trees to better flourish going forward.
“These new viewpoints we now have, especially in the spring and summer when the trees come to life will really make great places for visitors here to stop and enjoy the sights of the various wildlife Brickfield Pond has on its waters.”
Hazel hurdles, sustainable fencing made at the nature reserve will be fitted on to some of the viewpoints which will also include habitat piles to again support local wildlife
Work has also progressed on the community orchard site with the small pond opened up to visitors thanks to the removal of some of the bramble and a wetland wildflower seed mix sowed on the ground to help give a boost to insects in the area.
Cllr Barry Mellor, Lead Member for Environment and Transport and Council Biodiversity Champion, said: “This nature reserve plays an important role for projects and supporting local wildlife and providing a great spot for people to come and walk around for their own health benefits. We are grateful for everyone involved at the reserve for continuing to develop the area and I look forward to seeing the site in full bloom as we come into spring and summer this year.”
