Woolston Eyes Nature Reserve in Cheshire, England - April 2016

Went to the reserve to see the White Crowed Sparrow today but it did not show. Nice to see this reserve which is not open to the public, only permit holders!

 

 

www.woolstoneyes.com/

 

REVISED RESERVE CLOSING TIME STARTING 1st May 2016

Please note the following change in the closing time for the Reserve - From 1st May 2016 the Reserve will close at 20:00 hours, 8:00pm, promptly. The opening time remains at 08:00 hours, 08:00am. Keys obtained with your permits will not operate the locks put in place at closing on the footbridge entrance or the first barrier at the end of Thelwall Lane. Reserve opening and closing times are displayed here on our homepage and on the No3 Bed entrance footbridge gate, please reference this notice on your way in so you are always aware of the Reserve closing time. The gate and barriers will be locked promptly at the stated time please ensure you are off the site before the closing time to prevent being locked in.

Volunteer to help the Reserve

If you wish to assist the Woolston Eyes Nature Reserve with voluntary work please contact our warden John Langley via email john.langley@rspb.org.uk or Mobile 07980 827537

 

Welcome to Woolston Eyes Nature Reserve

 

 

An S.S.S.I. Managed by Woolston Eyes Conservation Group

 

 

www.woolstoneyes.com/woolston-eyes/who-are-we/

 

1. Who are the Woolston Eyes Conservation Group?

 

The WECG

 

Woolston Eyes Conservation Group, a voluntary organisation formed in 1979, manages the rich and varied wildlife of the deposit grounds with the agreement of the Manchester Ship Canal Company. Its aim is to promote the study and conservation of the wildlife and habitat of the area with particular regard to the ornithology.

The group undertakes management work to preserve or maximise the ornithological value of the Reserve, provides and maintains hides for the use of the public and permit holders, keeps the paths open and discourages disturbance. The group produces an Annual Report which summarises the work carried out and the results obtained including the scientific study of the flora and fauna of the Reserve.

To carry out this work the group raises funds by the sale of Permits, Annual Reports and by applying for grants from various organisations. The Reserve is open from dawn to dusk throughout the year. No.3 bed access requires a permit and key for the vehicle barriers and gated footbridge entrance - see homepage for permit application details.

 

The group is a registered charity and our charity registration number is 700362.

 

Officers and Trustees of the W.E.C.G.

ChairmanBrian Ankers

Vice ChairmanDavid Bowman

Treasurer/SecretaryDouglas Buchanan

RecorderBrian Martin

Committee

John Blundell

Kieran Foster

Dave Hackett

John Haddock

Sue Haddock

Alexander Mansfield

Alan Patterson

Dave Riley

David Spencer

 

Frank Linley, who died in October 2002, was a long-standing member of our committee who made highly significant contributions to the Conservation Group. He played a prominent role in the presentation of Annual Reports and Newsletters, established a database of members and initiated our first website. The new Tower Hide has been dedicated to his memory.

WECG has had the privilege of the support of two nationally respected figures as our patrons. The eminent ornithologist, Chris Mead, who died in January 2003 was for many years Patron of WECG and had visited the site from time to time.

More recently the well known Naturalist and Wildlife Broadcaster Chris Packham has become our patron. Chris is best known as the presenter of the BBC programmes Springwatch and Autumnwatch. He first visited the reserve in 2006 as presenter of the BBC wildlife series Natures Calendar, filming a section for the Spring Wetlands feature.

 

Chris very kindly gave up his time on a chilly February evening in 2010 to entertain a packed house at Warrington’s Parr Hall with a talk and slideshow of his experiences as a naturalist and photographer in support of the group.

We must also recognise and thank Colin Woolf a leading UK wildlife artist who has generously contributed his wonderful artwork for the covers of our annual reports for a number of years. If you appreciate wildlife and stunning drawings and paintings visit Colin’s website www.wildart.co.uk admire his talent and perhaps invest in an original piece of art yourself?

 

 

Access and Permits for Woolston Eyes

 

 

A public footpath runs from the end of Weir Lane, along the west side of No.2 bed and the north side of the canal to Thelwall Lane. Access to other parts of the Reserve is strictly limited to permit holders between the hours noted on the entrance gate throughout the year. A permit entitles the holder to visit the Eyes on any number of occasions during the year and to make use of the several hides. Please use the form below when making an application. Maps of the Reserve and the principle site No.3 bed can be viewed or downloaded from the FAQ section on the top menu bar.

Permit Pricing 2016

After managing to keep our permit prices down for the past 8 years, we have reluctantly concluded that, for this coming year, we will need to raise the prices to £15-00 for a single permit and £25-00 for a family permit

The additional funds will enable us to retain the full-time services of our Estate Worker, John Langley. Buying in John’s services from the RSPB has enabled us to tackle many of our outstanding habitat management tasks, to the benefit of both wildlife and visitors. I hope you will feel able to continue supporting us in the future.

 

Brian Ankers WECG Chairman

 

 

The WECG wish to stress to Permit Holders that current winter access hours are 08:00 hours to 16:00 hours with gates to the Reserve and entrance track secured between these times with locks which permit holders do not have keys. The opening and closing times will vary through the year as daylight hours change so please check out the times listed on our homepage and on the entrance gate to No3 bed which will be updated accordingly. We also wish to stress the importance of locking all appropriate gates when entering or leaving the Reserve. The “disappearance” of locks from various sites could lead to insurmountable problems.

Group Visits

Woolston Eyes has become a very popular venue for visits by bird watching groups, and in order to cope efficiently with the demand a ‘Group Visit’ procedure has been established. This should enable us to avoid the situation, which has arisen in the past, where several parties arrive on the same day, causing disturbance to the Reserve and congestion and irritation in the hides.

If you wish to book an outing for your group, or bring a party of your bird watching friends to Woolston please check out the latest group visit schedule listed in the scrolling news section of the hompage then write for a booking form to:

Mrs Rosalind Martin, 45 Albert Road, Grappenhall, Warrington, Cheshire,WA4 2 PF, enclosing an SAE. It is important that at least six weeks notice is given of an intended visit.

A booking fee of £20 is normally charged for groups of up to 10 people. For groups of larger than 10 visitors, there is an additional charge of £2 for each visitor above and beyond the “10”. A warden would be available to lead the visitors if so wished (if not, a key must be obtained beforehand in order to gain access to No 3 bed).

 

 

History of the Woolston Eyes Area

 

 

Not much is known about the area known as the Eyes before the Middle Ages, but we know people were in the area during the Bronze Age, and that the Anglo-Saxons reached the region around 700 AD. In fact the word ‘Ees’ is Saxon for land near a looping watercourse, so the Germanic settlers must have arrived on the banks of the Mersey about this time. Records begin around 500 years later.

Land ownership in the township of Thelwall was fairly stable between 1300 and 1536. During medieval times a third was owned by the Clayton family and the rest by the priory of Norton. The priors owned the valuable fishing rights for the south side of the River Mersey, which if the catches of 1749 were anything to go by, (19 and 23 pound salmon landed in May of that year) were fairly substantial.

At the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536 all monastic land passed to the crown and all Norton Priory’s former possessions were subsequently sold to the Claytons who thus acquired the whole of Thelwall as a private estate. They sold out to the Brookes, who interestingly had purchased Norton priory itself in the 1530s, and may have been seeking to unite its former possessions. However, they in turn sold Thelwall to the Moores, and it changed hands again to the Pickering family, who probably had control of the land by the 1770s when a bridge over the newly built Bridgewater canal was named after them. Thelwall remained in private hands until the late l9th century, when the township was incorporated into Runcorn District Council.

During the winter months the Mersey flooded across the meadows of Thelwall ( the village itself situated on slightly higher ground ). In the summer it is likely that sheep were grazed on the fertile fields which were probably too wet for arable cultivation in a pre-land drain era. Regular references to the Claytons as being ‘of Shepecrofte’ may point to this.

At the time of the famous salmon hauls of the mid 18th century, certain transformations to the Ees meadows were underway, as the effects of the Industrial Revolution began to be felt. Powder mills with workers cottages were constructed where the north bank of No.2 bed currently stands. Woolston Old Cut was the first navigational improvement undertaken across the north bank of No.3 bed ( just north of where the new weir was recently dug), and had occurred by 1777, as testified to by a map of that date. The short canal, or New Cut, further shortened the journey down the river by cutting out the loop of what is now Nos 3 and 4 beds, and wharves were constructed at the southern end of Weir Lane, for boats and goods to transfer onto the canal. On the South bank of the Mersey stood Statham Chemical works. The powder mills were built in 1755, and lasted exactly a century before, ironically, being destroyed by an explosion.

The major change to the area was the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal in 1896, which radically altered the landscape, beyond simply the imposing presence of the new waterway itself. The long meanders of the Mersey through Statham were cut off and became redundant, as did the old canals to the north and the wharves. The old water meadows largely disappeared under the deposit grounds which were constructed from the 1920’s onwards. The various farmsteads which had managed a living on these lowlands ceased to exist with the arrival of the first dredgings, except for the Wilgreaves’ which continued as a working farm until No.3 bed was constructed upon the site in the late 1950’s .The old farming lifestyle which had existed up to then was swept away.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Tony Usher for his help in getting us started and thanks also to David Bowman, Scott Kennedy and Brian Martin who wrote most of the text.

 

 

Habitat

 

 

The four beds at Woolston Deposit Grounds SSSI, are managed as a nature reserve by the Woolston Eyes Conservation Group in agreement with the Manchester Ship Canal Company. Parts of the site are still in use to accommodate dredging from the Manchester Ship Canal.

No.1 bed which is to the east of the motorway (the Thelwall Viaduct) consists primarily of rough grassland and willow scrub. Sand extraction has created a number of reedy pools which attract small numbers of Snipe and wild fowl. They are also a regular site for wintering Water Pipits.

No.2 bed is currently being used for pumping dredgings from the canal and is consequently attractive to large numbers of wildfowl. During late summer and early autumn, when water levels are at their lowest, muddy margins can appear which provide loafing areas for wildfowl, gulls and a few waders. Water Rails and the odd Spotted Crake are most easily visible at this time. Most of the water lies on the west side but during pumping the centre and east of the bed, which are predominantly willow scrub and Reed Canary Grass, can also become flooded.

No.3 bed lies to the north of a meander of the river. It has recently been made into an island by the diversion of the river along its north bank. This east side of the bed is shallowly flooded and contains extensive beds of typha and some phragmites. The western half of the bed is covered in dense vegetation, mainly grasses, nettles, thistle and willow scrub. An attempt is being made to introduce flower meadows into this area, to increase the habitat diversity, though it will be a year or two before the benefits are seen.

No.4 bed, to the west of the reserve, also lies between the river and the canal. The dredgings which were pumped onto the bed have now dried out and the silt is being excavated and sold as top dressing. The undisturbed areas of the bed are developing a dense cover of willow scrub, nettle and other rank vegetation.

All the beds are enclosed within steep embankments with rough grassland and scrub. In places taller poplars and willow grow alongside the river whose banks are covered in parts by hawthorn, elder, bramble. These banks are bird-rich at most times of year with late summer warbler flocks and early winter thrush flocks being particularly notable. The river and canal both seem to be benefiting from the slow improvement in water quality. In winter substantial flocks of diving duck, including Tufted Ducks, Pochards, Goldeneyes, Goosanders and the odd Scaup or Smew can reliably be found on the river where it encircles No.3 bed. The rubbish tips at both ends of the reserve have now closed and been capped, with both being attractive to winter feeding finches and pipits.

Bird Species

In all, two hundred and thirty two species have been recorded on the Reserve, including thirteen species of raptor, more than thirty species of wader, all five grebes, the three woodpeckers, and five species of owl. Click here for a full species list

Lying next to the Mersey, the flooded beds inevitably attract large numbers of dabbling ducks moving inland from the estuary. The Mersey Valley Pochard flock also spends time here, making this an excellent place to see winter wildfowl. Typically a thousand or more Teal are present, sometimes several times this figure, with several hundred Mallard and Pochard, a hundred or so Shoveller, Gadwall and Tufted Duck, and from a few dozen to several hundred Pintail. Ruddy Duck were also a regular feature. Other species of wildfowl occur less frequently or in smaller numbers, and scarce or rare species such as Ring-necked Duck, Feruginous and Long-tailed Duck, Green Winged Teal, Common Scoter and Smew have been noted. In late autumn and winter skeins of Pink-footed Geese can often be observed making hard weather movements to the east coast.

The water margins of No.3 bed are an excellent nesting habitat for Black-necked, Great Crested and Little Grebes plus Teal, Shoveller, Mallard, Pochard, Gadwall, Tufted and historically Ruddy Ducks. Pintail and Garganey are also suspected of breeding in some years. A similar range of species can also be found breeding on No.2 bed, dependant on water levels. A substantial Black-headed Gull colony dominates the water margins in No.3 bed and can spill over onto No.2 bed when conditions are right.

The Eyes is particularly important, in a county context, for its breeding populations of common warblers. Counts of singing males have totalled more than 200 singing Sedge Warblers, 150 Whitethroats, 100 Willow Warblers, 30 Blackcaps and a similar number of Reed Warblers, plus a dozen Grasshopper Warblers and small numbers of Chiffchaffs, Lesser Whitethroats and Garden Warblers.In the damper areas upto 100 Reed Bunting are present in summer.

Large aggregations of aerial feeders may be present from May to September, with many hundreds of Swifts joining the swirling flocks of hirundines feeding over the insect rich lagoons. In most years there is a sizeable Swallow roost, regularly up to 3,000 birds but sometimes reaching 10,000. Inevitably, a Hobby is often in attendance and provides some spectacular aerial performances. From October to early winter thousands of Redwing and other thrushes arrive to feed on the berry-rich hawthorns around the banks of the beds.

In winter roosts dwindle as food supplies diminish, although Magpies seldom seen to go hungry and over 200 continue to roost in the scrub. Finches, notably Linnets, Goldfinches and Chaffinches flock to feed on weed seeds on the drier parts of the muddy beds, with odd Siskins and Bramblings regularly located amongst them . A sprinkling of Chiffchaff remains in willow scrub during most winters and Firecrests have occasionally wintered alongside the more numerous Goldcrests.

Wader passage is much smaller than formerly due to changes in the pumping regime into the beds. Spring passage is typically light, although Common Sandpiper are seen regularly in late April and early May, and on one occasion stayed to breed. Little Ringed Plover appear annually and usually attempt to breed. The inland spread of Ringed Plover has resulted in this species also breeding. Autumn passage is much more reliable and although not as prolific as in the past, Snipe, Jack Snipe and Lapwing are reliably present, with the occasional Green Sandpiper, Dunlins, Greenshanks etc. for company.

As far as rare or scarce birds are concerned, Woolston remains a much under-watched site, offering much opportunity for the discovery of that ever-elusive rarity. Nevertheless, almost two decades of observation by a small number of enthusiasts, spread over Woolstons huge acreage, has produced some good birds, including: Storm and Leachs Petrels, Spoonbill, Bittern, Night and Purple Herons, Ring-necked and Ferruginous Ducks, Quail, Honey and Rough-legged Buzzards, Red Kite, Montagues Harrier, Temmincks Stint, White-rumped, Pectoral and Buff-breasted Sandpipers, Red-necked and Wilson`s Phalaropes, Avocet, Great and Arctic Skuas, Laughing, Mediterranean and Ring-billed Gulls, Whiskered and White-winged Black Terns, Bee-eater, Nightjar, Golden Oriole, Bluethroat, Great Grey Shrike, Marsh Warbler, Firecrest and Nutcracker.

Ringing

Over 110,000 birds have been ringed at Woolston since ringing first started here in 1980. A small team now operates on all four beds, usually from April to October each year, ringing around 4,000 birds per year. During more recent years, Woolston has taken part in an international ringing programme, aimed at studying those migratory species which winter in Africa. During the summer and early autumn large numbers of common warblers are ringed, with full biometrics taken, as part of that research programme. In the latter part of the year the focus is on tape-luring overflying finches and buntings. At any time there is the constant chance of the odd surprise, with Marsh Warbler, Bluethroat and Firecrest among the scarcer species ringed.

Ringing is a physically demanding and time consuming occupation but one which brings many rewards in terms of our knowledge of national and local bird populations. If you are interested in observing, or taking a more active part in the ringing programme, then please contact Dave Riley or Prof. David Norman through the website email facility via the ‘Contact’ tab.

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