Author: Land Matters (Page 4 of 5)

Wilder Lugg Project | Radnorshire Wildlife Trust (rwtwales.org)

We are involved with this project.

Please do come along on Wednesday.

Book here: https://www.rwtwales.org/events/2024-07-03-wilder-lugg-project-launch

Exciting news! We may have Otters on our Wetlands.

Radnorshire Wildlife Trust officers who have been surveying there for us think they have spotted signs of their activity.

We have agreed for them to put up motion sensor cameras in four locations – see photos. The cameras record a short video (around 5/10 seconds). A WT officer will check them after one month – camera trapping can sometimes be a long-term project, with otters sometimes not returning to sites for many months, but we hope to capture something soon.

(We have requested that all footage with humans in be deleted, which the WT will do. The cameras will be switched off for the upcoming Family Weekend.)

Let us know how you feel about the cameras.

And if you spot anything yourself, please let us know!

One of the newly made ponds, in the sunshine…

This brilliant collaboration is bound to be a hit:

As you can see in the photo, the land group Wetlands team meet up with Dan Westbury from Radnorshire Wildlife Trust’s Wilder Lugg Project, Sarenta King from the Wye Adapt to Climate Change Project and Tony Norman, Herefordshire farmer intent on saving the endangered native Black Poplar. (We may be planting some Black Poplar on the land – you can expect a blog post about this at some point.)

Here is some of the Pondlife seen:

This tree was planted at Greenstreete in memory of Jon Riehl, a North American Samatha practitioner who died in August 2022 after a long and painful illness. Jon was a much-loved  member of the Samatha community. Prior to his illness, he had practiced with Nai Boonman both in the US and at Greenstreete. He died just as the 35 Year Anniversary of Greenstreete & Nai Boonman 90th birthday celebrations were coming to an end and shortly before the final transference of merit.

looking very good and watery! (photo was taken before the storm)

Wherever water collects, it creates opportunities for life.

In the field near the wetlands area, the ponds and scrapes that were created this year have been collecting water.

These man-made, temporary sort of features will naturally dry up in some weathers, but are a valuable habitat for creatures such as invertebrates, wading birds and plants that like boggy conditions. 

We were not sure how well they would fill up, but as you can see here they are encouragingly holding the water for some time.

For further wetland conservation info: https://www.wwt.org.uk/discover-wetlands/wetlands/ditches-and-scrapes/

…and looking even more watery now, after the storm…

Land Art from the recent Creativity Week at Greenstreete

Further explanations of how these came into being are given in the video in the next blog post.

Pentwyn is just up the road from us. (To the left out of the main gate, and then turn right under the bridge.)

The farm there is being rewilded to provide a blueprint for more sustainable farming in Wales’s future.

Here is the latest newsletter from them, including who the newly appointed staff are, and the introduction of Tamworth pigs.

There is also a link there to sign up to get their newsletters if you are interested in keeping up with what is happening there.

photo: Isabel Pack