EDWA have been working hard with Natural England to create habitat that is good for many different species including ducks and geese.
Three of our washes have had work carried out on them in line with the High Level Stewardship scheme to make them more attractive for waders and many other species
- Excavating specially profiled wader scrapes together with putting 5 islands in the main pond to encourage breeding without the fear of ground predators.
- Reprofiling an existing pond and joining it with another also creating islands. Reprofiling the perimeter ditches to encourage wader activity.
- Reprofiling of the main splash and the excavating of another with a large island in. Some of the perimeter ditches were also reprofiled to make them both Wader friendly and to prevent grazing cattle from escaping.
We have already seen success with the work we have carried out, as breeding pairs of avocets have been spotted on these washes as well as other species.
The club has installed new Duck nesting tubes on various sites, showing early signs of being a great success with egg shells being found inside when renewing the nest material. With more nest tube sites being added every season.
Another great success has been the continued return of nesting Corncrakes on one of our washes, so much so that the WWT had asked us if they could take control over the wash during the breeding so they can monitor the breeding pairs.
