Welcome to our new website.
One of LUCT's priorities over the past twelve months has been a complete makeover of our website. The other had served us well but it was old and tired and failed to offer what most of us have come to expect of websites in 2016.
So here is the new one. The basics are up and running but it is still a work in progress with much to add over the coming months and a front page that will change to reflect the passing of seasons and the beginning of fresh ones.
As supporters, volunteers and visitors your comments on the new format are eagerly awaited, especially something that you would like to see incorporated into the website but which we have overlooked. So feel free to send us your feedback.
Another priority during the winter was to provide some much-needed management to the quarry reedbed. It was overgrown and whilst main channels of water were wonderfully clear, other parts were clogged with rotting vegetation and somewhat smelly.
Reedbed in Summer
Teams of volunteers spent weeks in there. First, the non-native alders around two sides of the reedbed were cleared, the stumps treated and the branches used to create a 'dead hedge'. Inside the reedbed many days were spent clearing wooden posts, iron posts and wire which had been there since LUCT volunteers first planted the reedbed in 2003. Finally, a mechanical reed cutter and clearer called a Truxor was brought in for two days to complete the clear-up operation. To watch a video of the Truxor at work click here.
And whilst all this was going on, a bittern hardly batted an eyelid – languidly flying from one part of the reedbed as the Truxor approached on Day One, and then doing the reverse when the machine started clearing the other bit of the reedbed on Day Two. It could not have worked better. Even a female marsh harrier which had been roosting there had gone hunting by the time the Truxor got into gear in the morning, and the work was done for the day by the time she returned to roost in the evening. An otter was seen during one of the work days, up to six water rails squeaked and grumbled on several of them and a party of 15 lesser redpolls flew over on another. It was great fun and some essential habitat management has been carried out.
Richard Wells, LUCT Trustee