After the excitement of last week where we presented our ‘Marine Net Gain Pipeline for the southern North Sea’ project for The Crown Estate and our project partners Natural England and Ørsted, this week we enjoyed the festivities of Christmas with the team and undertook some desk-based fieldwork for Suffolk Wildlife Trust!

Suffolk Bird Data Collation

We were tasked with inputting bird survey data from the River Stour and River Orwell into an excel sheet, to collate all of the data together in one document for analysis.

Suffolk Wildlife Trust have organised monitoring of wintering bird populations on the Stour and Orwell Estuaries Special Protection Area since 1999, on behalf of Harwich Haven Authority. This is undertaken as part of their remit to conserve, protect, regulate, maintain and improve the Haven and its environment.

Monitoring is undertaken at low water, when most birds within the estuary are feeding, thereby providing information regarding the condition of the estuarine habitats.  The process involves co-ordinating several experienced birders (37 birders covering 77 sections along both the Stour and Orwell estuaries) to simultaneously count the number of birds of each species that they see using the estuary within their allocated sections. They also record any incidences that may influence the natural behaviour of the birds.  This is undertaken 4 times over the winter months from November to February on a date close to Neap Tide, when low water is predicted for mid to late morning.  The data is collated and analysed for trends.

Together, the Stour and Orwell estuaries are a wetland of major international importance comprising extensive mudflats, low cliffs, saltmarsh and small areas of vegetated shingle. They provide wintering habitats for important bird species, particularly wildfowl and waders. They are a Ramsar site (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance) and are protected areas for birds in the UK.

Thanks Jill for letting us collate the data and learn more about Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s bird monitoring work!

LWT’s Conservation Christmas Lunch

The conservation team came together last week for a meal and to play some festive games. It was also a chance to meet some of the lovely new members of the team who will be starting early next year! Welcome Archie, Rich and Sophie; the new members of the Fens East Peat Partnership (FEPP) team. From charades, to wind-up penguin races, we had a great afternoon.

A LWT Hosted Town Hall

The Wildlife Trusts have town halls across the year, hosted by one of the 46 trusts across the UK. This month it was hosted by Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust! Our very own CEO Paul Learoyd and Head of Conservation Tammy Smalley took to the stage to present a few of the conservation projects that have been happening in Lincolnshire this year.

One of the highlights was the Wilder Humber project; a partnership programme between Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and Ørsted, with aims to restore Humber habitats and biodiversity. Ørsted is a renewable energy company that have a vision to create a world that runs entirely on green energy.

Wilder Humber is a five-year programme targeting marine habitats and species within the Humber estuary. This restoration effort is being made following Natural England’s decision that the estuary was in an ‘unfavourable condition’ in 2012. The habitats within this area are invaluable for marine life, and the programme hopes that a ‘seascape-scale’ approach to restoration within the Humber targeting seagrass meadows, saltmarsh, sand dunes and native oysters, will be beneficial to biodiversity throughout the estuary.

Sian and I had the pleasure of volunteering at Spurn Point a few months ago, where we helped out with seagrass seed collection and oyster restoration. If you’d like to read more about our experiences, please click here.

For more of the on-going conservation projects happening in Lincolnshire, click here.

Project Update from Us

We are currently in the stages of finalising our main project looking into marine net gain, and our individual projects that look into the implications of hydrogen on the marine environment and the global approach of carbon capture storage. Our next blog post will be an update on our two new projects, which we will be working on until the end of our internship in the middle of January.