Beckingham Marshes - Wetland Restoration
The RSPB, in partnership with the Environment Agency, has received £178,000 from WREN for a new wetland creation project, at Beckingham Marshes near Gainsborough.
The Beckingham Marshes project will benefit water voles, plus a host of other wildlife such as lapwings, otters and dragonflies which all depend on wetlands to live and thrive.
Work will soon start to create many ditches and pools of water that will turn the area into a real wildlife oasis and a fantastic place for people to enjoy.
30,000 tonnes of soil will be removed from the site to create the wetland. Well over 4km of ditches, full of water, will be created offering fantastic opportunities for water voles that will dig their nesting burrows in the banks of the ditches.
Water voles across the UK have declined catastrophically within the last 30 years vanishing from 90% of their former sites.
Up to 100 water vole burrows have been found in the river and ditch banks around Beckingham Marshes, so these enhancements will help the existing population to recover and flourish.
Michael Copleston, the RSPB's Beckingham Marshes manager said: "I'm so excited about what we are about to accomplish with this funding from WREN. It's actually a rather humbling experience to be part of recreating a landscape that in years to come will be teeming with wildlife, birds, otters and fluttering butterflies."
Images courtesy of www.rspb.org.uk
RSPB Contact: Michael Copleston (Warden) Tel: 01636 893611