Restoring the Swale & Ure Washlands Project
The Green Recovery Challenge Fund project, ‘Restoring the Swale & Ure Washlands’, has come to an end so it seems like a good time to take a look back over the past year and see what we’ve achieved!
The main aims of the project were to increase the capacity for nature conservation and restoration on undermanged priority habitats in the Swale & Ure valley by:
- Recruiting more regular volunteers
- Improving infrastructure to support and retain volunteers
- Giving volunteers the opportunity for training and development
- Recruiting interns
- Increasing community engagement by running events and weekend practical workdays
This increased capacity will allow us to carry out our habitat targets for both this project and in the future: enhancement & restoration of biodiversity within the few remaining fragments of semi-natural wetland & grassland in the washlands; and creation of new habitats on former mineral sites.
VOLUNTEERS
We brought 20 new regular practical & survey volunteers on board throughout the course of the year, bringing our total number of volunteers to 35!
Along with our community workdays and time people have contributed in other ways (surveying, collating bird records, administration, blog writing etc), a massive 6,500 hours have been contributed by volunteers this year! A really extraordinary achievement.
Of course, we could not have achieved what we have this past year without so many brilliant people contributing their time, knowledge and enthusiasm, so a massive THANK YOU to you all!
INFRASTRUCTURE
The funding also allowed us to purchase more sea containers for storage and an agricultural building which will act as a covered workshop. We have acquired a welfare unit, which means the volunteers now have somewhere warm & dry to sit in winter, hot running water to wash hands, drinking water & facilities to make tea & coffee!
TRAINING
Both practical & ecological training was given to our volunteers to improve their knowledge & enhance their experience. Volunteers were trained on the use of equipment to allow us to carry out vital habitat management work going forward.
Our ecologist, Martin Hammond, ran some training workshops focussed on identification of sedges & rushes, and aquatic invertebrates. Dry-stone walling training was greatly enjoyed by all who participated!
We ran student training days – students from Bishop Burton College & York University came to learn about Nosterfield, the habitats we have here, how we manage them and the species we manage them for. They also had the opportunity to get stuck in and help with some practical habitat management while they were here.
INTERNSHIPS
We employed interns for the first time! The appointment of Gabriel & Daniel was a great success and they both proved invaluable in helping to deliver the project. We were able to provide them with certified training and a great variety of hands on, practical conservation experience in order to set them on their way to a bright career in conservation! Updates from them coming soon.
COMMUNITY WORKDAYS
Another important aspect of the project was to build links with the local community. We’ve held 9 community workdays during the year, doing tasks like planting up sandbags, tree guard removal and vegetation management in the reedbed and on the wildflower verges. Most recently, we’ve been clearing up the woodland after the recent felling work.
HABITAT CREATION
Creating new fen habitat at Nosterfield quarry was one of the main habitat targets and we achieved this through the introduction of thousands of wetland plants.
The Swale & Ure Washlands were once characterised by their wetlands and the plant communities chosen to re-introduce were based on a rich archive of local botanical records and the small surviving fragments of natural fen in the Swale and Ure washlands.
The plants needed to create this habitat were grown in our plant nursery by our incredible team of volunteers. Heading up the nursery volunteers are Pan & Laurie, whose knowledge, enthusiasm and dedication has been vital to the success of this part of the project. Over the course of the year over 2,500 hours were spent by volunteers either working in the nursery or planting, almost 1,500 of these hours by Pan & Laurie alone!
Over 20,000 plants were propagated this year, and seeds and plants have been collected from 10 different sites. We are now propagating 89 different species of (primarily wetland) plants in the nursery, some of which are very rare and close to extinction in the Ure Valley, or in some cases, the UK.
An estimated 8,000 – 10,000 plants were planted out on the quarry and reserve.
We also created some trial plots on the magnesian limestone on the west side of Kiln lake. These have proved very successful, as long as we can keep out the bunnies!
PARTNERSHIP WORKING
As the project name suggests – we were not just concerned with improving the reserve & quarry but other sites within the Swale & Ure Washlands too. During the course of the year the volunteers have carried out:
- A summer haycut at St. John’s Churchyard, Sharow – A fantastic example of ancient hay meadow, and how churchyards can be sympathetically managed for nature and people.
- Sedge planting at Ripon City Wetlands (Yorkshire Wildlife Trust) – To add diversity to their newly created reedbed we donated and planted over 2000 plants.
- Cutting a SINC road verge in Richmond – an undermanaged site that we hope we can restore and use as a seed source to enhance our own meadow areas.
- Scrub removal at a privately owned remnant area of fen near Bedale – Becoming overgrown with hawthorn, this area was in danger of drying out; a large area was cleared this year and we hope to return this winter to continue the good work.
- Red osier dogwood removal at a privately owned remnant of fen & wet woodland near Sharow - Overgrown with invasive Red Osier Dogwood, volunteers removed and burned large swathes of this to allow fen vegetation to regenerate.
AND MUCH, MUCH MORE…
Plenty of other work was carried out over the course of the project. Amongst other things, we built & installed an osprey nest, two sand martin banks and created newt & dragonfly ponds at the quarry. We cut back large areas of the reedbed, pulled ragwort and controlled invasive species across both sites.
We created an area of species-rich hay meadow on the bund between the reedbed & Flasks lake & planted trees & sedges to enhance the wet woodland on Kiln. Over winter we undertook thinning of the woodland belt around the quarry and created glades, as well as repairing large stretches of fencing on Keith’s field.
We set up breeding bird surveys, butterfly transects & dragon/damselfly monitoring which will hopefully continue for many years, which will help to inform our management and contribute to national databases.
AND FINALLY…
It really has been a fantastic year and shows how much can be achieved when people come together. The Trust is now in a much better position to continue to deliver it’s aims of creating and restoring great wildlife habitat and we hope to do so for many years to come!
Many thanks to DEFRA, the National Lottery Heritage Fund & Tarmac.
Emma Higgs
May 2022
