White Cart Water Flood Prevention Scheme

Contract 1 - environment

Protecting the wildlife of the White Cart Water - Issue 2

Over the past 12 months as the construction project has progressed, there have been many developments made to enhance and protect the natural environment.

Habitat creation

As part of the scheme design, plans were made to enhance the wildlife habitat diversity at all three flood storage sites with the creation of woodland, scrub, species-rich wet grasslands and ponds. The creation of wet grassland from the pre-existing improved agricultural land is now underway. Grazing marsh and wet grassland are UK and local biodiversity action plan (BAP) habitats and were chosen as appropriate habitats to create in this area to increase biodiversity and support local wildlife within the flood plains of the three flood storage areas. These habitats are to be achieved by:

1. reducing the fertility of the soil by removing top soil (this prevents grasses and competitive weeds growing too vigorously and choking out the less competitive wild-flowers) (figure 1);

2. lowering the ground level which “wets-up” the land making it boggy (figure 2) and

3. digging deeper areas to hold pools of water including shallow scrapes (which will dry out during dry spells) and ponds (both with muddy, shallow sloping edges) (figure 3).

Figure 1: Soil stripping at Kirkland

Figure 2: Lowered ground levels and scrapes at Kittoch

Figure 3: The new pond at Kirkland

The construction of these areas is now nearing completion.

This work provides a good environment for the varied plant communities of natural grazing marsh and wet grassland. The aim is to produce natural communities which will consist of a rich mix of grasses, sedges and wild flowers. These plants communities in turn will support a wide range of insects including dragonflies and birds such as lapwings. Already in 2009, a large flock of lapwings has been regularly using the new wetland to feed (figure 4) and swallows have been observed drinking and feeding at the new pond.

Figure 4: Lapwings at Kirkland Bridge

Because the land being converted into wetland was originally improved agricultural land and is surrounded by agriculture, the new habitat requires a helping hand to develop the varied floral community which will be beneficial to wildlife. Planting and seeding will therefore take place using plants and seed sourced as locally as possible. The advantage of using seeds and plants from local areas (local provenance) include:

The production of a plant community of grasses and wildflowers that is typical of the local area
plants which are genetically similar to those found nearby and
plants which are well adapted to conditions found locally and therefore well able to thrive.

One way to ensure that seed is sourced locally is to collect it locally. Seed from grasses and sedges has already been collected by a Scottish native seed merchant, Scotia Seeds at the Blackhouse site from the marsh and wet flush areas (figures 5 and 6).

Figure 5: Seed collection taking place at Blackhouse wetland

Figure 6: Seed collected by Scotia Seeds

The seed was collected by hand from plants including reed canary grass which is a tall reed growing thickly along the river banks at Blackhouse and Kirkland. This seed will be taken back to be separated and sorted and then sown and grown into plug plants at a Scottish plant nursery. The plug plants can then be planted on the wetlands next spring, helping to establish a community of local provenance plant life on the wetlands.

A new badger sett

A licence to “interfere with badger setts” was issued by the Scottish Government in May 2009 to allow the contractor to construct an artificial badger sett near to existing setts in one of the flood storage areas but above the 1 in 200 year flood level. This was constructed during the summer months, outside the badger breeding season (figure 7). The sett was constructed using a network of wooden chambers and pipes to act as sleeping compartments and tunnels. The whole construction was then buried near to existing setts to provide additional quarters for the badgers.

Figure 7: The newly completed artificial badger sett. One entrance is visible on the left of the mound of soil.

Figure 8: The European badger (Meles meles)

News about the otters

The rivers are important corridors forming a continuous passage for fish including trout and other animals such as otters. In order to prevent any disruption to their migrating or commuting routes, the culverts under the embankment dams have been designed to allow free passage of wildlife with a mammal ledge for the otters and a culvert bed designed to simulate a natural, rocky, river bed with boulders and ledges to form pools for the fish. During the summer, spraint (otter faeces) was observed several times inside the culvert at Blackhouse (figure 8). This has demonstrated that our otter is already using the mammal ledge to move through the culvert.

Figure 9: Otter spraint on the mammal ledge inside the culvert at Blackhouse

Figure 10: The European otter (Lutra lutra)