Habitat Management Highlights

By Emma Higgs, LUCT Project Manager

Quarry Moor

We’ve been continuing our work at Quarry Moor Nature Reserve throughout the summer, mostly concentrating on removal of Himalayan Balsam and sycamore saplings.

Throughout June & July, the volunteers made a tremendous effort to pull Himalayan Balsam from around the whole of the Quarry Moor site. A lot of the Balsam is growing amongst brambles and nettles, so it wasn’t the easiest job, especially amid several heat waves! We managed to pull almost 90% of the balsam on-site which is a huge achievement and we’ll hopefully see a notable impact next year.

Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) has been present in England since around the 15th century, but it is not native. It can spread readily and shade out valuable grassland vegetation if left unchecked, so we have been cutting and removing saplings from the Bottom Field to help maintain the magnesian limestone grassland that makes this site so special.  

Langwith Green Hay

As part of the ongoing quarry restoration, in July our volunteers spread over 40 bales of freshly cut species rich hay over the banks to the north of Langwith lake. The hay was cut from local species rich hay meadows and transported to site soon after cutting, where the bales were rolled out across the area. The unrolled bales then needed to be spread out by hand, a long and very dusty process! Due to the very dry weather this year, there was not as much hay to spread as we would have liked, so there is more to cover next year. Many thanks to all the volunteers who helped with this, we hope this will develop into a large area of quality hay meadow, a habitat which has reduced by 97% in the UK since the 1930’s.