Many thanks to Staithes Arts Festival committee which has made a donation, via our website ‘Buy me a coffee’ page, to buy extra Yellow Rattle and Coastal Wildflower seeds for the verges along Cowbar Lane. This is generous of them and one of their measures to respect and protect Cowbar habitat when oragnising festival traffic.
Now 400gms of Yellow Rattle seed and over 150gms of wildflower seeds have been sown along the south verge– including bought seed and loads gathered from Vetches, Campions, Poppies, Daisies, Birds-foot-trefoil, Corncockle, Orchids and Foxgloves already growing on the bund and grassland.
If plenty of these come through, it will not only encourage a wider range of insects, provide cover for small creatures (and food for their predators) and help prevent the ground becoming waterlogged, but it might also encourage more people to respect the verges as habitat and hold off from driving and parking on them.
Paul Murphy, the Redcar & Cleveland countryside ranger, says the bund has developed into a valuable wildlife corridor. If the verges can develop a wildflower meadow type range of plants and the rough grassland of the cliff top stays protected, that’s quite a healthy combination of habitats for creatures and humans to thrive in.
The article below is a useful summary of why verges everywhere are important.