The Ecclesbourne restored and some great partnership working!

Living Rivers Officer Kath Stapley writes:
“A river re-meandering project on the River Ecclesbourne is currently taking place at Turnditch, some seven miles south of our Middleton office. This project was initiated by the Environment Agency (EA) five years ago with the trust becoming involved subsequently. Scott McKenzie and Tarun Ingvorsen drove the early stages and Jenny Kril and I have been working on it since then, seeing it through to the recent delivery phase.

The aim of the project was to re-naturalise a 300 metre stretch of the river, bypassing the last remaining weir and putting the river back into its original channel. Following the removal of the weir at Snake Lane in Duffield last year, this now opens up the entire river system to Atlantic salmon and other migratory species such as eels so that they can return to and from their spawning grounds. The new section of river will be longer and run much more slowly than the previous straight, deep channel which was constructed in the late 1700’s to power the local corn mill. As a result, the river will now become much more biodiverse.

One of the essential key components to the project’s success has been partnership working.
In addition to the EA, DWT has been working closely with the Wild Trout Trust, Chatsworth Estate, the tenant farmers and Nestlé (a key funder). Ace Nature, aka Helen Campbell and Andrew Gallear, famous for their Willington beaver footage, has been documenting the work throughout. All partners have been great drivers and supporters of the work with the final delivery being by Ebsford Environmental”.

Winter birds arrive
As usual, the last two weeks of October have seen the arrival of millions of birds coming here for the winter.
The biggest are whooper swans which fly in from Iceland –  56 stopped off briefly at Ogston Reservoir recently on their way further south.
The smallest are goldcrests, tiny birds that against all odds somehow manage to fly here across the North Sea.

A birder on the Yorkshire coast yesterday watched as hundreds flew in off the sea and landed on whatever clifftop blade of grass they could find – including one bird that landed on him!
See below the remarkable autumn 2022 track of one goldcrest which flew overnight from Holland to Yorkshire in eight hours at an average (slightly wind assisted) speed of 27 mph!

Other arrivals recently have included short and long eared owls, woodcock, duck and geese, thrushes including fieldfares and redwings and many finch species plus a few waxwings. Might we be in for a ‘waxwing invasion winter’ I wonder?
Exciting times!

Bat box check at Hilton Gravel Pits Reserve this Sunday (29^th).
The Derbyshire Bat Conservation Group will be checking the  bat boxes at Hilton reserve SW of Derby. I dare say non-members would be welcome.
If you are interested please ask the DBCG Secretary: secretary@derbyshirebats.org.uk . Three species, natterer's, noctule and soprano pipistrelle are known to use the boxes there.

Twisting climbers with poisonous berries
If you are walking by a hedgerow, look out for dense clusters of bright red berries on stems which twist and turn around whatever hedgerow shrub they are growing  on.
These will likely belong to black bryony, a widespread and common plant in the county except in the North West. (See where it occurs here: Flora of Derbyshire - Tamus communis (Black Bryony) (kevinhutchby.uk).
It’s our only native member of the yam family and is highly poisonous to us at least!

The similar but unrelated white bryony, a member of the cucumber family, is a real southerner and far less common even there (see Flora of Derbyshire - Bryonia dioica (White Bryony) (kevinhutchby.uk) ) and again, its red berries and especially its roots are highly poisonous!

Remember if you see anything whilst you're out and about this Autumn, please do let us know through the Derbyshire Biological Records Centre webpage: here