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Conservation Matters: April

Find out what our conservation teams have been working on this month.

Wet grassland transformation at Blue House Farm

With generous funding from Biffa Award, Essex Wildlife Trust can transform 40 hectares of this south Essex landscape. A wetland creation will deliver greater breeding opportunities for threatened species, provide habitat connectivity and ensure climate change resilience through water storage, soil health and carbon sequestration. Not only will this have huge positive impacts for wildlife, but the public will be able to enjoy the wildlife that thrives here.

dry land at blue house farm

With warmer weather in spring and summer, the land begins to dry. 

As this photograph demonstrates, vast areas of the landscape will dry up when spring and summer start to warm the fields. This project, however, will adapt the landscape to create shallow-profiled scrapes and remove agricultural drains. This will provide substantial benefits to threatened bird species, tiny insects and small mammals who all rely on wetland areas for breeding, living or as respite.

Lapwing egg

Lapwing's are ground-nesting birds. Nests like these are particularly vulnerable to predation. 

Currently, we are monitoring one of our endangered species’ nests, a lapwing, in the hopes of a successful breed this year. The nests are vulnerable to predation and the transformation of this area of Blue House Farm will hopefully provide the secure habitat that these waders require. We want to ensure lapwing will be a frequent feature of this vast green landscape.  

The Essex Bioblitz is blooming

From the 1 April, we asked the people of Essex to join us in mapping wildflowers across the county, in order to collect valuable data which in turn will help to discover the wider impacts of climate change in our local communities. So far, the response has been incredible with the iNaturalist app recording over 2,000 observations already in just the first month alone. Thanks to your cooperation, this project is well on the way to becoming one of the biggest citizen science projects Essex has seen.

photographing flower

As the weather gets warmer, new species will begin to flourish. Look out for bluebells beginning to emerge, the rare oxlip in open woodlands and primroses decorating our open spaces. If you spot bell-shaped, bee-friendly tubular pink flowers you may be looking at the first foxglove of the year.

If you aren’t having much luck in your local spaces, you can always go wildflower hunting amongst the wildlife that lives within our nature reserves!

Click here to find out the best reserves for wildflower spotting at this time of year. 

                                 Get Bioblitzin' where you live

Eager beavers

Essex Wildlife Trust has been supporting Spains Hall Estate for the past three years since their release of a pair of Eurasian beavers to a secure beaver enclosure. 

This once dry woodland, with only a stream running through that would dry up during parts of the year, has been transformed into a complex wetland made up of a series of dams, pools and canals, holding water on site in wet periods and releasing it slowly during dry periods. We saw rapid changes to the habitat in the first couple of years, and we're now starting to see more gradual changes as the wetland is now more established.

Our team regularly track the changes to this habitat, and our recent visit demonstrated the immense capabilities of these mammals. Beavers are the engineers of the wildlife world and are always hard at work. Now with four kits, it is fantastic to visit this site and see them thriving.

beaver

Credit: Russell Savory

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