CLM20-2 full issue-1 - Flipbook - Page 11
Saltmarsh restoration through flash re-creation
the summer, the flashes are more ephemeral, their
longevity determined largely by levels of rainfall.
In some summers the flashes have retained water
from April to September but in most years,
although they hold water for weeks after the April
spring tides, they dry up by midsummer.
Our experience is that once restored these
features are quickly adopted by waterfowl and
waders, including breeding, passage and wintering
birds. Their characteristic expanses of shallow
water allow for both feeding and roosting in the
water and on the muddy edges of drawdown
zones. The flashes on the Solway are regularly
used by roosting pink-footed and barnacle geese,
and roosting and feeding mute and whooper
swans, shelduck, teal, wigeon, mallard, shoveler,
pintail and gadwall. Waders exploiting the
flashes include black-tailed godwit, ruff, lapwing,
redshank, avocet, dunlin, lapwing, and ringed and
little ringed plovers.
In the breeding season, the flashes are
particularly valuable for waders. The bare ground
at pool margins provides a source of invertebrates
for food, while wader chicks are well camouflaged
against the mud and often shelter in livestock
hoofprints. As well as the expected lapwing and
redshank, ringed plover have bred on some of the
larger flashes and in recent years one or two pairs
of dunlin have lingered to nest. The flashes are
particularly favoured by redshank and all of the
newly created features are within the territories of
one or more breeding pairs.
While the vegetation is limited to salttolerant species, we have found a wider range
of communities present than were there before
the works took place. Not only are there
now greater opportunities for species more
commonly associated with brackish standing
waters and drawdown zones, such as brackish
water-crowfoot, but salt-tolerant drawdown
zone communities have also established, such as
extensive carpets of sea spurrey. The latter not
only represents a new community on the marsh
but is also of value to waterfowl, attracting large
numbers of ducks to feed on the seeds once the
flashes have refilled.
Many areas of saltmarsh in England have been
degraded by drainage in the past – particularly,
but not exclusively, the grazed marshes of
the north-west. Where these modifications
The addition of ephemeral pools and standing
waters to saltmarsh provides habitat for species
that are scarce or absent on drained marsh, such as
brackish water-crowfoot. Bart Donato
have occurred, consideration should be given
to the potential benefits to plant, insect and
bird communities, as well as the more holistic
functioning of the saltmarsh, of having flash
features restored.
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to the Mounsey-Heysham family
and the Estate team at Castletown Estate for
their proactive support for the restoration work
on Rockcliffe Marsh, and to Cumbria Coast Site
Manager Dave Blackledge who managed the
saltmarsh restoration work at Campfield Marsh.
References
Macpherson, Rev. H. A. 1892. Vertebrate Fauna of
Lakeland. David Douglas, Edinburgh.
Ratcliffe, D. A. 2002. Lakeland: The Wildlife of Cumbria.
Harper Collins, London.
Sharps, E., Smart, J., Mason, L. R., Jones, K., Skov, M. W.,
Garbutt, A., & Hiddink, J. G. 2017. Nest trampling and
ground nesting birds: Quantifying temporal and spatial
overlap between cattle activity and breeding redshank.
Ecology and Evolution 7: 6622–6633.
Bart Donato (e-mail: bart.donato@
naturalengland.org.uk) is a senior ornithologist,
and former SSSI officer for Natural England, with
a particular interest in restoring coastal systems
and their birdlife. Mhairi Maclauchlan (e-mail:
mhairi.maclauchlan@rspb.org.uk) is the RSPB
Cumbria Coast Warden covering Hodbarrow,
St Bees and Campfield Marsh reserves.
Conservation Land Management Summer 2022 | Vol. 20 No. 2 9
