Dawsholm Park

Dawsholm Park

 

This site lies between the A739, Bearsden Road and the A81, Maryhill Road.

Status - City Wide SINC

Grid Reference NS 553695 

Description

This 34 hectare site consists mostly of policy and plantation woodland and is principally important for the birdlife this habitat type supports. The River Kelvin runs along the northern boundary and to the south is an area of grassland, overgrown pasture and former golf course. There is an extensive network of well used public footpaths within the park's wooded areas. The paths are fringed in areas by dense rhododendron, which provides good habitat for woodland birds with high densities of species such as robin, blue tit and blackbird. There is also a pond to the east of the woodland.

Habitat Types

  • Woodland
    The woodland consists of mixed mature trees such as beech, sycamore, oak, cherry, larch, yew, and pine with rhododendrons. In particular, beech, yew and rhododendron cause dense shading. This has restricted the woodland herbs, but bluebell, foxglove and wood sorrel are present in areas. The riverbank vegetation is much more diverse including garlic mustard, great wood-rush and round-leaved saxifrage.

  • Hedgerow
    Hawthorn hedgerows bound the overgrown pasture and golf course to the southwest of the woodland. These provide invertebrate food for birds such as robin, wren and dunnock during the breeding season and in winter the berries are eaten by thrushes and small mammals, such as the wood mouse.


Animal Life

Wood Mouse Sparrowhawk Blackbird
Wood Mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) is usually the commonest small rodent in woodland. They feed on a wide variety of items from seeds and buds to insects and earthworms.
Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) is a bird of prey specialising in catching smaller birds in woodland and scrub. Until recently their population throughout Britain was declining due to the use of pesticides, however, their presence in wooded areas is now becoming a more common sight.		 Blackbird (Turdus merula) males are jet black in colour with a bright orange-yellow bill. The females are dark brown. It is the commonest bird in Glasgow, being found virtually everywhere.


Plant Life

Beech Trees Wood Sorrel Hawthorn
Beech (Fagus sylvatica) trees, once mature, cast so much shade that very little grows on the ground beneath them. Beech nuts, the fruit of the tree, are a valuable food source for grey squirrels and wood mice in Dawsholm Park.

Wood Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella) is common in shady oak and beech woods where the delicate white flowers are often overlooked.
Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) is a small thorny tree which produces an abundance of white flowers in spring and red berries in autumn. It is common throughout Glasgow in woodlands, hedgerows, unmanaged grasslands and on waste ground.