Come and take a look...
Don’t you just love having something to look forward to? I can’t wait to check out the beautiful new Minnowburn Pond. The National Trust has been hard at work for many months improving this wetland site, and the result sounds as if it is going to be brilliant. Even better, with new paths and benches (coming soon), the Pond is now much more accessible for everyone.
First step to transformation - digging out the silted up pond.
Craig Somerville, Belfast Area Warden for the National Trust, tells us about the new and improved wetland site at Minnowburn.
Work is nearing completion on a wetlands project at Minnowburn. The old pond, which had completely silted up, was dug out with help from Rivers Agency back in 2006. This latest phase, a partnership between Laganscape and the National Trust, has seen the creation of accessible paths, a willow weave bird hide and a dipping platform.
The work has been funded through the Laganscape project, which is a Heritage Lottery Fund Landscape Partnership Scheme. David Scott, Laganscape Project Officer said, “The National Trust team at Minnowburn came to Laganscape with a few ideas and it has since developed into a great project. This shows what can be achieved when organisations such as ours work in partnership to deliver projects that have a real benefit for everyone.”
One dipping platform coming up!
The area is a wonderful habitat for all sorts of wildlife, and the National Trust will use the dipping platform for educational work with local schools. It all looks a bit muddy at the minute, but give it a few months and the new landscape will have naturalised just beautifully.
On Saturday 11th February, a large team of volunteers from Laganscape and the National Trust came along to plant about 600 native trees and build the willow weave bird hide which looks magnificent.
Willow weavers at work.....A big thank you to the crew who made it all possible.
“The whole project is designed to get people closer to nature”, says David. “The paths give access for all and in the coming years we will endeavour to make the area even more wildlife friendly with the management of a wildflower meadow. Look out for interpretation features and some nice wooden benches to be added soon.” (So it's nice to know there's even more to look forward to!)
Where's the water?! The 'pond' before the 2006 work.
David and Craig also ask that if you are taking your dog along for a walk around the pond, please keep it on a lead. The pond is a sensitive ecosystem and we have to be careful not to disturb it too much or let any invasive species get a foothold.
I’ve got my wellies ready!
More good news – the swans are back at Stranmillis, hopefully to stay. Now seen two weeks running: an adult swan and a young swan born last season and still showing some grey feathers.
Moorhen eating his greens along the Lagan
February 2nd is a red-letter day for nature. Not only the ancient Celtic festival of Imbloc; (meaning ewe’s milk, it is a major celebration of spring and the lambing season) in the US and Canada it’s Groundhog Day. But more importantly for us, and all the rest of the planet, Feb 2 is World Wetlands Day. Nice to see wetlands getting a bit of attention, and their own special day, because they certainly deserve it.
The Cinderellas of nature, wetlands can get overlooked compared to showier hills, forests and seascapes. Even their descriptions: bog, fen, marsh, swamp, do no favours. But don’t underrate their beauty and value. Up close, these squishy, squelchy worlds are very exotic! In a few months the ponds and swamps along the Lagan will be teeming with buzzing, flitting jewel-like insects, the call and splash of birds, tall reeds, frogs and blooming irises.
February 2 has been declared World Wetlands Day to celebrate these vulnerable habitats everywhere. This date in 1971 marked the adoption of the International Convention on Wetlands in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the Caspian Sea. Over 120 countries are now involved.
Cormorants like a nice perch from which to view the marshes (and their next meal)
The best flood prevention is natural Set in a bowl and threaded with rivers, Belfast and the Lagan Valley has a diversity of wetlands – the salt marshes and mudflats along Belfast Lough, the Bog Meadows(originally a 1000 acre floodplain for the Blackstaff River), the mountain moors, and of course the Lagan ponds and marshlands. Back in the day, these soggy places were much more extensive, which is why the few remaining wetlands we have are all the more valuable and worth protecting.
Not only for their beauty and incredible diversity of plants and animals which rivals any rainforest, but for the valuable role wetlands play in protecting against floods and erosion. Floodplains and fens act as natural sponges to absorb extra water, prevent overflow and minimise damage.
David Scott, LVRP Information and Conservation Officer details how natural solutions can reduce flood risk.
Flooding is a natural process that cannot always be prevented and can have severe impacts on individuals and communities, but also on wildlife. Climate change is likely to increase occurrences, so we need to find new ways to deal with managing flooding. Natural habitats can be used to help us handle flood risk, bringing benefits for biodiversity as well as to communities.
Working with nature we can restore a catchment's natural capacity to deal with floods. Wetlands, floodplains and woodland all act to slow the flow of water, store water in the catchment and reduce the threat of flooding downstream.
Measures that use natural habitats and restore natural processes can work in combination with more traditional flood risk management measures such as concrete floodwalls. An advantage of working with nature is that these methods can deliver multiple benefits for people and the environment:
· Tackling diffuse pollution - for example buffer strips can reduce excess nutrients and sediment run-off entering watercourses and also contribute to slowing and storing floodwater
· Restoring natural processes and habitats in a catchment to improve biodiversity and geodiversity - for example removing flood embankments and reconnecting a river with its floodplain
· Creating a more attractive landscape and enhanced amenity.
Flood prevention can be beautiful
Case in point - The Bog Meadows has been undergoing major restoration as part of Belfast’s flood control plans, to harness its power to prevent flooding.
Along the Lagan too, the diverse swamps and water meadows play an essential role in flood prevention – without these places Belfast and Lagan city centres would be soggier places! Of course these wetlands are also essential to plant and animal life along the Lagan and beyond.
Wetland projects are an important aspect of the Laganscape conservation work, designed to protect these fragile habitats, restore their beauty and diversity, make them more accessible...and prove that Bog Is Beautiful!
Minnowburn Pond gets a marvelous makeover David describes the nearly completed Minnowburn Wetland Project, where volunteers and staff have donned their wellies and gotten stuck in.
Regardless of whether ponds are natural or man-made, millponds, peat cutting ponds, garden ponds, gravel ponds and the natural variety, are all important habitats. Small as they are, ponds may support a diversity of life, and are particularly good habitats for amphibians such as frogs, toads and newts, and invertebrates such as dragonflies, snails and water beetles. The Park has examples of both man made and natural ponds.
The Minnowburn Wetland Project has created access to and enhanced the existing pond site off the Ballylesson Rd. This includes the provision of a designated accessible footpath from the Minnowburn car park to the pond with further access to the adjacent field and beyond. This will link the site to the Giant’s Ring network of paths. A dipping platform made out of green Irish oak has been built to facilitate education groups and pond dippers alike.
Laganscape and National Trust volunteers will be working to further enhance the habitat through the planting of wetland trees and creation of a willow weave bird hide. The bird hide will be made from living willow, which will continue to grow and provide a natural screen for visitors to watch heron, sparrow hawks, wood sandpiper and a whole array of tits and finches.
The work will be completed soon and a launch event is planned, so watch this space. And for more wonderful wetland images and info about the Lagan, go to http://www.laganvalleylearning.co.uk/Topics/ponds_10.aspx . Full of good stuff for people to go explore ponds for themselves.
Wetland residents can be pretty colourful - kingfishers like the quieter stretches of the river