It’s not just at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve where efforts have been taking place to encourage birds and wildlife. Nearby twenty-five new islands have been formed at RSPB Dungeness as part of a scheme which began in 2017.
Island levels were raised to tackle the increasing water levels from climate change. The work has been funded by Natural England as part of their Species Recovery Programme.
The Dungeness peninsula sits on an aquifer (a body of well-saturated rocks, gravel, sand, or silt that make way for the easy movement of water) and as such there are no controls on water levels on any of the lakes.
This directly impacts the seabird colonies on the reserve as climate change induced weather patterns cause wetter winters and cooler springs. As a result, existing islands on the lakes were often under water during April and May – key months for nesting seabirds.
The islands were created using shingle submerged in the lakes on site. The team at RSPB Dungeness spent last winter clearing vegetation from some of the island locations, including fringing willow which had been encroaching on the edge of the lake.
An excavator was floated out to the island locations on a pontoon, digging up the submerged shingle and using it to form islands.
The habitat creation has supported the first fledged Avocet chick in nineteen years at the reserve alongside Common Tern chicks. The reduction of fringing willow has created opportunities for the Marshmallow plant, the foodplant of the rare Marshmallow Moth and also created conditions preferential for the Medicinal Leech. The reserve is nationally important for the Medicinal Leech and holds a significant proportion of the UK population.
The work is expected to support large flocks of Lapwing, Great White Egrets and Gulls and providing great views for visitors in the hides. There has also been an increase in the variety of species visiting the reserve this year. These include Great Northern and Black Throated Divers, Black, Artic, Sandwich and Common Terns, Common, Greater and Lesser Black Back Gulls, Avocets, Plovers, Ruff, Curlew, Wood and Pectoral Sandpipers.
Image Credits: RSPB .