Wiltshire wetlands prepared for threatened reed buntings

01/12/2007 00:00:00 The reed bunting, a dapper little songbird which features on the Red List for highest conservation priority, will soon find food and a home at the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust’s Lower Moor Farm nature reserve.

The bird, similar in size to a sparrow, needs insects to feed to its chicks in the spring and summer, lots of seeds throughout the year and a safe nesting ground. The Trust is preparing a wetland area that will hopefully bolster its population, which plummeted by half between 1970 and 1998. ‘We are digging a series of shallow scrapes near to the newly built visitor centre that are up to 2ft deep and will provide a source of shallow water and wetland plants,’ says the Trust’s head of reserves Dave Turner.

‘The water will attract a wealth of insect life in the summer while the plants will offer a good variety of seeds, all of which will help the reed bunting. They will also be great for attracting winter birds such as snipe, jack snipe, green sandpipers and other waders too’ he adds.

The reed bunting’s struggle to survive is at least partly explained by a deterioration of wet habitats across the country with the loss of small ponds, unsympathetic river engineering and the encroachment of scrub into damp areas. ‘Wetland areas are really important places for wildlife,’ says Jo Sayers, the Trust’s water for wildlife project officer. ‘They provide security as birds are less likely to be predated than on dry land. Reed buntings, which are a Cotswold Water Park Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) species, nest near the ground which means the chicks are easy prey.’

At least two ponds are also being dug to provide constant deeper water, which is a benefit for amphibians. Pond dipping platforms will help visitors get up close to the dragonflies and damselflies that will live around them. And Dave is hoping for another important species to set up home.

‘We’ll have a real feather in our cap if we manage to attract some great crested newts, a BAP species that we know lives in neighbouring areas,’ he says.

The Trust received a grant of £681,500 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) towards the purchase of Lower Moor Farm.

Courtesy of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust.