About Elmwood LTC - Wildlife

With the exception of the Clubhouse and it's ancillary buildings, the ground has never been built upon, and an impressive variety of wild life survives within the one green acre of land. The grass cover comprises old 'unimproved' meadow grasses with plentiful white clover, buttercups, creeping cinqfoil, catsear and yellow with a sprinkling of red clover, ox-eye daisy and meadowsweet, plus thriving red-ant hills (which accounts for early morning visits from green woodpeckers).

A rough and ready census of wild flowers yields an impressive total of over 80 species of flower and herb. There are in addition some 30 species of tree and shrub, and several species of bird including blackbirds, robins, wrens and woodpigeon nest within the area. Because old tree stumps and felled trunks are allowed to quietly decay, a wide variety of fungi may be found browsing happily; and it is encouraging to see them munching through the occasional bale of "free newspapers" that sail from time to time over our hedge.

Threatened animal species to be found include the ornate and dramatic stag-beetle whose survival also depends on tree stumps and undisturbed ambient habitat that insures bio diversity.

A rough and ready census of wild flowers yields an impressive total of over 80 species of flower and herb.