Issuu

Volunteer News

The latest news and highlights for the Volunteers of Leicestershire & Rutland Wildlife Trust

Jean & Graham Layne

In each issue we will feature a 'Spotlight' on one of our volunteers.

In this issue we hear from Jean and Graham Layne Both Jean and Graham have been involved in a wide range of volunteering within the Trust at Rutland Water. From Osprey cruises and being in the visitor centre to DIY! We cant forget George the spaniel who also volunters his time with Jean.

I retired from 31 years in the NHS 4 days before we locked down in 2020. I had already chosen to take up some voluntary work in the field of nature, but obviously it had to go on hold. I had particularly wanted to do something customer facing and had my eye on the centre at Lyndon, who would not want that 'view from the office'! Once the lock down situation eased, I applied and was lucky enough to get a regular shift at Lyndon, starting in summer 2020. I loved it, it was busy, lots of visitors, as people were getting out and about again, and we had a really good season. I became very interested in the Osprey and one of the staff suggested joining the monitoring team. I started in March 2021 and opted for one of the very early morning slots as I live locally and the thought of having the privilege to watch the osprey as the sun rose, particularly appealed. In reality I saw very few sun rises and it can be very chilly, but the osprey are always there, and they are beautiful! As is Rutland Water whatever the weather!

For the winter season of 2021/22 Lyndon remained open as a trial. I had signed up for a charity dog walking challenge throughout October 2021 which involved dog walking every day. I approached the manager at Lyndon to see if I could bring George in on a Friday so we could do our walk at lunchtime in the daylight. Everyone fell for him! Once the challenge was complete he was asked to stay, and he is now my companion every Friday morning in the centre. We even found someone to make him his own bandana in green to match the uniform we wear. Following on from this he has also joined me on my early monitoring shift in Waderscrape hide, and we have just started our fourth osprey monitoring season! So good is he now that he has worked out a little bit about bird watching! Geese seem to be his favourite, mainly due to the noise they make in flight which he watches with a keen interest!

Jean & George

So as a regular session we do a shift in the hide followed by a morning in the Visitor Centre. It is a real privilege to volunteer at Lyndon, I have met some lovely people, both staff and members of the public I have learnt about nature and been given the opportunity to join the Osprey Cruises as a volunteer, these are a lovely experience, and a real treat to be amongst the public who just want to enjoy Rutland Water and hopefully see our beautiful osprey.

During our shifts at the centre George loves everyone, particularly those with food! and he now is fully aware that we have a tub of biscuits for visiting dogs! One biscuit for them and one for him! He has made many friends! The two of us cycle to the centre, him in his trailer and me towing it, electric bike I might add! Many people now recognise his transport! We are trying to do a little bit for the climate.

In late season 2023 my husband Graham joined the volunteer team. He is the handy man for Lyndon and odd jobs at the VTC. He really enjoys working with his hands and has helped with painting, power washing, cementing, small plumbing jobs, loose cupboard doors and several other jobs that need a screwdriver! He really enjoys helping out and getting these small jobs done, as he has always enjoyed manual work. He regularly checks the hides for any adjustments that need doing to the window latches or doors, cleans the hide windows and collects any rubbish that has been left. This is a pleasure for him as he can combine this particular task with bird watching! What is not to like!

It is a great privilege to volunteer in such beautiful surroundings and be amongst nature, particularly during the osprey season, and long may it last!!

News & Updates

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Do you know about our legacy scheme?

The team here are LRWT have made this great poster to share. Do you know any businesses that may put this poster on display for us?

What a legacy helps us acheive?

Continue to care for and protect our nature reserves so that wildlife can thrive

Restore and reconnect precious habitats and breeding sites to support the recovery of threatened species

Purchase land to ensure more areas of Leicestershire and Rutland are protected for nature

Work with landowners to help them manage their land in a wildlife

friendly way

Empower local communities to take action for wildlife

Expand our education work so we can inspire and educate more young people about the importance of protecting the natural world

Volunteers helping with events

Here at the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust we are looking to grow our team of volunteers that can help out with the events we have scheduled or are planning.

The events can be anything from helping to represent the trust at community or business events, going on guided walks, delivering leaflets, making tea at supporter events or helping with craft activities.

If you are interested then please do get in contact. We will add your name to the pool and contact everyone on the list about upcoming events you can help with.

To have a chat about this volunteer opportunity, or what it might involve, please contact our head office: 0116 262 9968

Join us for our 2 day Dry Stone Walling Course suitable for beginners. Learn the basic principles of the craft of stone wall building

Dry Stone walls can stand for decades. This two day course will give you the basic principles of the craft of stone wall building or repair and give you an understanding of the construction of a field wall. A skilled and knowledgeable instructor will explain the techniques of the craft while you get hands on experience.

During the course you will learn how to:

Strip out a wall correctly and grade the stone

Set up a wall profile

Lay foundations

Build the first and second lift

Lay throughstones correctly

Cope a wall off and tidy

Date: Saturday 12 April 2025 - Sunday 13 April 2025

Time: 9am - 4pm

Price: £99 + Eventbrite fees

To book email event@lrwt.org.uk or book online via LRWT website.

Nick Crowley Volunteer (West)

Croft Pasture is a Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust Reserve and a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Only 38% of SSSIs in England are recorded as being in a favourable condition and Croft is not one of them.

Sophia and LRWT volunteers are doing something about this situation. The reserve is currently recorded as “unfavourable-recovering”. Government has set a long-term aim of having 75% of SSSIs in favourable condition by 2042.

On the reserve the River soar flows through a rock gorge that was cut by the ice and at the top of gorge cliff there is a lot of gorse. This scrub has spread into an area of acid grassland where species such as the beautiful Harebell is found. This is part of the reason why the reserve is regarded as being in an unfavourable condition.

Over the past two winters volunteer work parties have been removing the gorse. So far, more than 700 square metres of gorse and hawthorn scrub has been cleared. The scrub is burned on raised platforms away from the valuable acid grassland area.

Over the next two years further gorse will be removed and any regen tackled and this site might then be assessed as being in a favourable condition and well before 2042.

Clearing the hedge

Isabel Raval

Charnwood Forest Regional Park Project and Surveys Officer

Over the winter, the majority of our time (with a sprinkling of emergency fence repairs caused by flooding, creating a drainage system for the steps at Ketton Quarry and a few other bits and pieces) has been spent coppicing in our woodlands and removing scrub from our grassland sites I cannot express how happy I am that spring is finally here Sunshine, birdsong and butterflies do not fix everything but life certainly feels a lot better than it did during the grey skies of February. This feeling was solidified during the Wildlife Recording Group’s most recent Saturday escapade to Charley Woods, where, after narrowly avoiding several collisions with Charnwood Marathon runners, we came across a couple of stands of Cherry Plum in full bloom. Like the Honeybees and Bumblebees that covered it, we were lured in by the gloriously sweet scent of this early flowerer. We took a few minutes identifying it and discovering how it differs to Blackthorn (look out for those green shoots!) but probably could have stayed there all day.

The downside of the coming of spring is that the Charnwood Forest Landscape Partnership Scheme is finishing and that means so is my time with LRWT, at the end of April. I have been working in my role as Project Officer for almost three years (and I was also a volunteer with LRWT for a year before that) and in that time I have learned a bucketload, had some fantastic experiences and met some amazing people. I have also become pretty well-acquainted with the Charnwood Forest Geopark and what a wonderful area it is – spoiler alert: it spreads much further than Bradgate Park! If anyone wants advice on places to visit, you know who to ask…

A massive thank you to all the volunteers that I have had the pleasure of working with along the way. I will email you all with some facts and figures once we have finished our reporting for the project but for now it is important to say how much I have appreciated your support, and your dedication to the wildlife conservation cause is inspiring. We have done a lot together over the years – grassland surveys, seed collecting, scything, bird surveys, butterfly surveys, woodland surveys, reptile surveys, general wildlife recording days and learning together on training days. I have not yet added up the number of volunteer hours that have gone into our projects, but it is a heck of a lot! I hope everyone who has interacted with our activities has found value in doing so and discovered, or been reminded of, why the Charnwood Forest is such a special area that needs to be cared for.

For my remaining weeks, I will be found lurking in woodlands or sunbathing on rocky outcrops (sort of) so do come and join me for a last hurrah!

Juliette Colaco Reserve Officer (East)

Removing scrub on our grassland sites can sometimes involve pulling small scrub that is encroaching from the hedgeline but a lot of our time this year has been spent removing some rather larger established areas of scrub.

We focused on a coppice coupe in Prior’s Coppice this winter which has been a magical place to spend our time and we look forward to seeing how it develops over the next few years and continuing the coppice rotation.

Last winter, we undertook a huge tree planting project at Holwell Nature Reserve, planting over 13,000 trees to create a new woodland that would link up two areas of existing woodland. This project was funded by the David Cock Foundation and the Forestry Commision and in mid-March Rebecca and Becky from the David Cock Foundation came to see the newly planted woodland and to choose an area to dedicate as ‘David’s Copse’.

Before (top) and after (bottom) at Stonesby Quarry

East team volunteer thank you - freshly cooked jacket spuds and mulled apple juice enjoyed by all.

Paul Trevor Senior Reserves Officer (Rutland Water)

The Habitats Team at Rutland Water (Paul, Matt, Katie, Jill and Sam + all our wonderful volunteers) have had a very busy winter. It’s always our busiest time of year as we get the bulk of our habitat management done outside of the breeding season.

This Autumn and Winter we have paid extra attention to our wetland habitats and eased up on some of our woodlands, most notably Hambleton Wood, taking a year out from the coppice cycle. This periodic pausing can be beneficial as it gives the woodland a year with minimal disturbance.

We have been getting on with all the usual maintenance and habitat improvement tasks but have also undertaken some more major projects. Here’s a brief overview of some of our main projects:

Island re-profiling and landscaping on lagoons 2,3 & 4

We undertook some major re-landscaping and island reprofiling on the islands and ditches of lagoons 2, 3 and 4. We had a months worth of working using an excavator. The reprofiling rejuvenates the islands which had become overly vegetated. The new fresh islands are particularly appealing to a range of breeding waders and wintering wildfowl.

Scrub management along the buns of lagoon 1 and 2

The bunds between lagoon1, lagoon 2 and main water had become overgrown with some fairly large areas of scrub. Although scrub is a very important habitat the presence of scrub in these locations was impacting on the connectivity of the open water habitats.

Removing the scrub creates flyways between these habitats and increases potential grazing for species such as widgeon. As an added bonus it also improves visible areas of open water for visitors so they can observe more birds.

Lagoon 3 reedbed willow clearance

Manton Bay/A6003 fence replacement, hedgelaying and willow pollarding

The hedgerow and fence on our reserve boundary at Manton bay where it meets the A6003 had become overgrown and not stock proof. We graze our cattle on the grasslands around this area of the reserve, so it is essential that we have a stock proof boundary. The re-laying of the hedge and pollarding of the larger willows will rejuvenate these features and offer an increased lifespan and biodiversity value once they start to regenerate.

We have some great reedbeds fringing lagoon 3 but there was an area in the northwest corner which had become colonised by a significant area of willow scrub. This had led to the reedbed becoming disconnected. The removal of the willow scrub will create a larger more connected reedbed which in turn offers greater suitability for reedbed specialists such as Bittern.

Willow scrub is an important component of our wetland habitats and offer great biodiversity value. However, if it is allowed to colonise other areas of reedbed habitat we will lose biodiversity value of the reedbed. A careful balance must be found, and provision of both habitat types needs to be considered.

Hello! Spring is here! Yay!

Sam Pitt Miller Trainee Reserves Officer (Rutland Water)

The chainsaws can rest until next winter after being busy over the last few months There has been many a day of willow coppicing and clearing willow from bunds, a good bit of fence-line scrub clearance and a dab of Health and Safety tree felling, I certainly feel I’ve got to grips with using a chainsaw now! I particularly enjoyed undertaking and leading on my own project, a willow coup near mallard hide, and making a big ol’ mess in the name of habitat creation

In the absence of the excitement of summer wildlife, it has been nice seeing all the wintering wildfowl on the reserve, a couple of smart Smew spotted by Matt on a lunch break were rather nice indeed. With short days there hasn’t been much chance to get out onto the reserve in the evenings, as such I’ve spent a couple of evenings dissecting and identifying some moths and was very excited to discover that a moth caught on the reserve last year, a Large Ear, is a first for the county!

The first Sand Martin of the year was recently seen on the reserve, and perhaps by the time you are reading this our breeding population will be back in the bank beginning their 2025 breeding efforts, exciting times.

Jill Dobbie Trainee Reserves Officer (Rutland Water)

It’s been a busy four months of winter work with plenty of chainsaw practice! Lots of coppicing willow and hazel blocks, as well as working on the lagoon 1 and 2 bunds. We’ve also been felling trees that needed to come down for health and safety reasons, clearing and repairing fence lines, and helping instal the new Manton Bay fence – learning a nifty chainsaw hedge laying skill in the process! More fun on the tractors as well, taking hay to livestock and extracting the timber from Cherry Wood. It’s been great taking on more responsibility for leading tasks and I’ve enjoyed completing my TRO project, which was opening up the view along a section of Lyndon visitor centre walking track near Deep Water hide. And, whilst all the tree felling has been exciting, it was also nice to offset this by planting some new trees in Legacy Wood and helping with the veteran tree surveys across the reserve woodlands.

It's also been great getting involved with other surveys we do around the reserve, like the annual WinGs (winter gull roost count), on a gorgeous, but freezing day in January, and of course the continuing WEBs counts. We had a fun Reserves Staff Team day as well, where we all piled in the truck with chainsaws and went along to Charnwood Reserve to help remove some invasive rhododendron, followed by a guided walk through the reserve.

Now that Spring is here, we ’ re giving the chainsaws a rest and focusing on jobs like fencing, so we can move livestock back into new fields, and of course, preparing for the Ospreys to return! It’s been so lovely to see the first signs of new growth and watching the birds around the reserve start to pair up and build nests.

Lastly, I’m both excited and sad to say this will be my last TRO update, as I’ve been successful in finding a job as a Deputy Warden with the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and will start with them in April! I can’t thank LRWT and especially the Rutland Water Nature Reserve team enough for all the support, guidance and help developing the skills and experience I’ve gained during this traineeship. I hope I do them proud in my new role! This traineeship really has been the most amazing opportunity, and I have so enjoyed working with everyone. A huge thanks to all the wonderful volunteers I’ve worked with over the last eight months, it’s been an absolute pleasure to be part of the team with you all

Beth Fox Assistant Species and Recording Officer

This past week, volunteers at Rutland Water have focusing on making and installing a new type of predator fencing to protect the nesting waders on Lagoon 4

Over the past few years, we have seen a noticeable decline in the success of wader nests –and we think this has largely been due to predation. Crows, gulls, otters, foxes and badgers are usually the culprits (although we don’t have firm evidence at this stage), and whilst there is not much we can do in the short-term to prevent birds and otters, we can try and prevent foxes and badgers which are the two species we think are having the most effect on Lagoon 4.

The predator fencing essentially looks and works like a swimming pool lane line and floats in the water around the edge lagoon. Foxes and badgers do not like to get their heads wet, so when they swim up to the rope they are stopped in their tracks as they won’t go under it, and as it is too wobbly, they can’t get over it! This is a fairly new method of predator fencing which has been proven successful at a number of wetland reserves around the UK and abroad.

Step one of this operation was to make the rope, which involved threading 2000 small fishing net floats onto two kilometres worth of rope. As you can imagine, this took quite a lot of toing and froing to snake the rope up and down the yard. Once the floats had been carefully counted and threaded on, they were attached with cable ties at one metre intervals.

Threading the floats onto the rope

Measuring out the one metre intervals

Winding up the finished anti-predator ropes

Tying ourselves in knots.

A lot of knots, unwinding, and expert reversing.

At the end of April, coinciding with the peak time for wader nesting, we will be undertaking some intensive predator monitoring. This will ultimately help us to see if the predator fencing has been successful. We will be running this for one week, from 4am to midnight, with a rota of volunteers and staff doing 4-hour shifts in one of the bird hides. This will need a very big team to be able to carry this out, so we would be grateful for all the help we can get. If this is something that you would be interested in helping with then please do send me an email: bfox@lrwt.org.uk

Many thanks to all the volunteers who were involved with this project!

Getting ready to drop an anchor

Tim Sexton Senior Species and Recording Officer

A fungus which is the only native British Species to be listed in the 'World's 100 Most Threatened Species' (which covers all species not just fungi) has been found at Rutland Water - only the second record in England since 1876.

The fungus was discovered on a coppiced Willow in an area of woodland adjacent to Lagoon 2 whilst we were carrying out an audit of bat boxes. A sample of the fungus was taken back to the VTC so that it could be formerly identified. After a little bit of searching, it was identified as the Willow Blister Fungus (Cryptomyces maximus) – a relative of the more common Tar Spot Fungus (which is found on the leaves of sycamore trees. The identification was later confirmed by a mycologist from Kew Gardens.

The Willow Blister Fungus (Cryptomyces maximus) had previously only been found in a handful of locations in Pembrokeshire, warranting it a place in the list of 100 critically endangered species in the world - the result of a collaboration of over 8,000 scientists from International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission (IUCN) and Zoological society of London (ZSL). The list is published in the 2012 book Priceless or Worthless? by ZSL. In which, the Willow Blister Fungus sits alongside species such as the Spoonbill Sandpiper and Woolly Spider Monkey.

It has been suggested that since its initial description in 1801, this species has been observed probably fewer than 100 times anywhere in the world. Despite recent records of the fungus in Scotland, there is still only one other record in England since 1876. As it is a conspicuous fungus and readily identifiable from macroscopic characteristics, coupled with hundreds of unsuccessful searches in suitable habitat in the UK, it would appear that it is genuinely rare rather than under-recorded (as many ascomycete species are).

Since the discovery, we have opened the section of the winter trail earlier than normal and have put up signage directing visitors to the Willow tree it was found on. Mycologists have come from as far away as Berkshire to see the rare find, and many of our volunteers have taken a keen interest in it too. One of our habitat volunteers even went on to find a record of the species on the Lyndon side of the Reserve – a follow-up survey resulted in ‘the mother ship’ of the species, situated right under our noses in some willow carr behind the Lyndon Visitor Centre!

Matt Scase

Visitor Centre and Events

Officer

Hello from a busy Lyndon Visitor Centre. It was lovely to open our doors to the public on the 5th March, and we are now open 7 days a week. If you ’ ve never been down to the Visitor Centre and Nature Reserve here at Rutland Water than I would definitely recommend it (I know I might be a little biased).

Before we opened I got to welcome 2 new members of staff to the Trust. Joining us is Paige Ferrier (Volunteer Coordinator) and Elizabeth Hare (Information Assistant). It’s been wonderful to have a team here and they have both been fantastic in the month they’ve been with me

Paige is our Volunteer Coordinator so you’ll all be hearing a lot more from her over the next few months as she settles into the role and gets to know you all. I know she is keen to get out there and meet as many of you as possible, so hopefully you might get the chance to say hi soon.

Elizabeth will be focused on all things Osprey and has already got stuck in learning and talking about these wonderful birds. You’ll no doubt see more of Elizabeth as the season progresses, either down here at the centre, across our various social media platforms, or at any one of the numerous events we are scheduling.

On the subject of Osprey it was early March that our attention turned to the skies as we waited for that first sighting of the season. On the morning of the 13th March we got the notification from our Osprey Volunteer down in Waderscrape Hide that the first Osprey had landed on the Manton Bay nest. It’s always tremendously exciting when we get that first Osprey report, especially as it was on our main public nest.

With the blue Darvic rings that the majority of Osprey in the UK now have we were able to identify the bird as 25(10). She is not either of our regular Manton birds and actually has an established nest further away in the wider Rutland area. She stayed on the nest for about 30 minutes before flying off.

That afternoon further excitement followed when our resident male Osprey, 33(11), landed on the nest. Remarkably this was exactly the same date he returned last year (almost to the hour). For a couple of days these 2 were the only Osprey we had reports of, and they started to get quite friendly on the Manton Bay nest. This isn’t unheard of, and a similar thing happened between 33(11) and 25(10) in 2023.

We continued to wait to see if Maya, our main female, would return. Not only is Maya getting pretty old in the world of Ospreys, but she was also slightly unwell during the 2024 season, so we didn’t know weather or not she would make it back from that treacherous migration journey.

It was on the morning of Monday 17th March that we saw a 3rd Osprey land on the nest. This Osprey had no identifying rings, but it was unmistakeably Maya. She had returned to Rutland, making it the 17th year she has been seen here. Her first task for the season was to see off 25(10). She did this, with 25(10) returning to her usual nesting site over the other side of Rutland.

Now back on the nest together, both Maya and 33(11) quickly got down to business and hopefully this is the beginning of a really successful season at Rutland. Maya and 33(11) have been breeding together on the Manton Bay nest since 2015, and in that time have raised 27 chicks together. Since the Osprey project first started in 1996, a total of 278 chicks have successfully fledged from the Rutland area. If we have a year similar to 2024 we could well see us surpass the 300 chick mark later in the summer.

It’s not just Osprey that call Rutland Water their home The Nature Reserve has never been so alive. In recent months we have been having the most amazing Otter sightings, and they have become quite the attraction for anyone visiting. Perhaps the biggest surprise came one Sunday afternoon when a White-Tailed Eagle was seen outside Waderscrape Hide. This is certainly not something we see very often at the Reserve and it’s not something you are likely to miss if you catch a glimpse of it (they are huge). It spent that Sunday afternoon flying between the Lax Hill and the dead tree by Tufted Duck hide, much to the delight of those who were here. Around mid-afternoon it flew off in a westerly direction and hasn’t been back to the Reserve since.

Other recent highlights include Water Rail, Kingfishers, and Barn Owls. With so much out there it is a perfect time to come and pay us a visit. Not only do we have the Reserve, the centre is fully equipped with light refreshments, gifts and books, and a live TV view of our Osprey nest.

Over the winter we ran a whole bunch of events from the Lyndon Centre. These proved extremely popular, and I am delighted to say that we have now been able to schedule more for the spring onwards. We’ve got badger watches, otter watches, family friendly trails, bat walks, and a whole host of exciting events.

As well as all the events mentioned above, our Osprey Cruises will be running again from the end of May. These run throughout the summer and are a wonderful way to come and watch the Osprey in action. Do think about joining us aboard the Rutland Belle and you might even get lucky and see a fishing Osprey next to the boat.

To book onto any of our events, please visit our website: https://www.lrwt.org.uk/events

Front and back cover images are of Rutland Water Nature Reserve and taken by Matt Scase