The Friends of Middleton Park are hosting a free guided walk in Middleton Park on Sunday (27 July 2025) exploring trees and butterflies in the park.

The land that used to be the “Old Nine” of the municipal golf course at Middleton has in recent years been planted with specimen natural and parkland trees, by Wade’s Charity, to make an interesting Tree Trail. Of course the park has a wonderful selection of existing trees, including an old majestic oak, which unfortunately came down in th gales last August. We will do our best to try and identify many of the trees we pass, so if you wish, you can brush up on your tree identification skills.

Part of Middleton Park is a Nature Reserve, and at this time of year there are many butterflies and other insects around. We will see how many different sorts of butterfly we can find. While the park cannot boast any rare species, it does have a good population of Purple Hairstreak butterflies.  The Purple Hairstreak can be hard to spot and is often overlooked, not many people seeing it.  Let hope for some sun to bring them out in good numbers!

Join us at 1:30pm this Sunday (27 July) at the Visitor Centre in the park, there’s no need to book. The walk will last about one and a half hours. Walks in the park may often include muddy or wet wooodland paths, so please wear boots or walking shoes, and appropriate clothing for the weather. The Visitor Centre is accessed off Town Street, LS10 3SH.

We will have ID sheets for common butterflies and trees to hand out to aid identification.

 

This post was written by Jim Jackson

Main photo: the Purple Hairstreak butterfly

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