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White Cart Water FPS Home > Contract 1 > environment
Contract 1 - environment
Protecting the wildlife of the White Cart Water - Issue 3
Over the past 10 months as the construction project has progressed, there
have been many developments made to enhance and protect the natural environment.
Habitat creation
The wet grassland at Kirkland which is under construction, with its pond
and scrapes, has already proved popular with a wide variety of different
birds including swallows, sand martins, various geese species, plover, oystercatcher
and lapwings.
Some birds nest on the ground and a pair of lapwings and a pair of oystercatchers
have nested on the stubble and short vegetation in the wetland. Already
the eggs have successfully hatched out.
Figure 1 – Lapwing
Figure 2 – Oystercatcher
Figure 3 – Lapwing nest
Sand martins
Sand martins are summer visitors to Scotland. They spend the winter in Africa
and migrate north to breed in the summer. They nest in long tunnels which
they dig into vertical sandy cliff faces that are often found in a river
bank. Their numbers are dwindling due to many different factors including
the loss of suitable nesting habitat in the UK.
Figure 4 – A sand martin at its nest tunnel
Sand martins, like swallows, return to the same place to nest and we have
a colony of sand martins that have returned to Kirkland Bridge each year.
To improve their chances of successful breeding, we have built an artificial
sand martin wall with nest tunnels provided for them to nest in.
Figure 5 – The artificial sand martin wall
The wall is constructed from pre-cast concrete, back-filled with local sandy
soil and pierced by around 50 plastic tubes to provide the nest tunnels.
The front face has been rendered and painted to give the appearance of a
sandy cliff.
Despite its artificial look, the wall has been so successful that within
a few days of its completion, the sand martins moved in. There were at least
a dozen pairs nesting in the wall.
Figure 6 – Sand martins at the artificial nest wall
News about the otters
The culverts built at each flood storage area have been monitored over the
past 10 months and evidence has been found (spraints and paw prints) of
otter inside ALL THREE SITES. The mammal ledges running along the inside
of the culverts are so far providing a successful and safe route for otters
to commute along the river and through the culverts.