LIFE ON THE EDGE (LOTE) PROJECT
  • Home
  • News
  • Project
    • Objectives
    • Project Actions
    • Expected Results
    • Project Sites
    • Project Species
    • Project Partners
  • Documents
  • Drone Videos
  • Webinars
    • 2021 Shorebirds Webinar
    • 2023 Coastal Birds Webinar
    • 2023 Shorebirds Webinar
    • 2023 Disturbance Webinar

News

The restoration of Seasalter Levels, part 2

15/3/2022

0 Comments

 
By Audrey Jost - Assistant Warden at RSPB Seasalter Levels

​Works are coming to an end at Seasalter Levels. Machines are slowly leaving the site whilst rills and scrapes fill up with water, making the landscape unrecognisable from 6 months ago. 
Picture
Change of landscape. Top - a field in Seasalter Levels in June 2021. Bottom – the same field after the restoration works, in January 2022 (Audrey Jost)
Picture
Five hydrological units have been created, where water levels will be controlled by mechanical pumps that extract water from the surrounding ditch network and disperse it into the fields in order to provide the right habitat conditions for breeding waders. 
Picture
Pipes in a rill in Alberta, allowing for fine water level control. Manually lowering or raising the pipe elbows enable us to adjust the water level in the management unit (Audrey Jost)

​​The changes in the landscape provided immediate results wildlife-wise. Lapwings are now a regular sighting across the site, with a flock of 142 observed during the last wetland bird survey. Redshank, wigeon, curlew, green sandpiper, teal and shoveler are further examples of recently seen species. We even spotted a juvenile golden plover!
Picture
Juvenile golden plover by a rill in Alberta (February 2022) (Audrey Jost)

​​As most breeding wetland birds are ground nesters, they are very vulnerable to predation, notably by foxes. In order to boost the fledgling rate of youngs, we installed a 1.8 kilometre long anti-predator fence on part of the reserve. The fence is buried in the ground and cranked towards the outside at the top to prevent predators from digging and climbing respectively. 
Picture
A view of the new anti-predator fence (Helen Pitman)

​​In addition to the anti-predator fence, the infrastructure and associated fencing installation to allow cattle grazing of the site is in progress and is due to be completed by March 2022. We also increased the number of corrals from 1 to 4, which will help with cattle movement across the site.
Picture
Machinery used to install new fencing at Seasalter Levels, a work in progress (Matt Cooper)
Picture
As the project is wrapping up, it is giving way to a time of recovery and monitoring. It has been an intense year for the reserve and it will take a few more years for it to fully reach its potential. A huge thank you to our funders, the reserve team and the contractors for making this project a reality!
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021

    Categories

    All
    Cumbria
    Disturbance
    Dredging
    Essex
    Gull Colony
    Habitat Creation/Restoration
    Hodbarrow
    Horsey Island
    Little Terns
    Monitoring
    Morecambe Bay
    Networking
    Norfolk
    Northey
    Predation
    RSPB Langstone
    RSPB Minsmere
    RSPB Old Hall Marshes
    RSPB Pagham
    RSPB Titchwell
    Sandwich Terns
    Seasalter
    Solent
    South Walney
    The Netherlands
    Volunteering
    Wardening

    Photo credits: ​Oystercatcher by Katie Nethercoat (rspb-images.com)
    LOTE Logo credits: Saskia Wischnewski
Project LIFE on the edge: improving the condition and long-term resilience of key coastal SPAs in S, E and N England is supported by the LIFE Programme of the European Union
LIFE19 NAT/UK/000964
Picture
  • Home
  • News
  • Project
    • Objectives
    • Project Actions
    • Expected Results
    • Project Sites
    • Project Species
    • Project Partners
  • Documents
  • Drone Videos
  • Webinars
    • 2021 Shorebirds Webinar
    • 2023 Coastal Birds Webinar
    • 2023 Shorebirds Webinar
    • 2023 Disturbance Webinar