Castle Water islands
10th August 2006, ThursdayWe are now in our 3rd (of 6) weeks of excavation at Castle Water to create new and improved wetland habitats. The many new islands were full of Lapwing today, about 1,000, but they were disturbed for a while by a ringtail Hen Harrier. Other birds enjoying the islands are Black-headed and Common Gulls, which wait around for worms in the excavated soil to be dumped into the pit. This is then landscaped to form a network of new islands.
A large excavator digs down, here to create a new deep, wide ditch, about 1,000m long.
Here the spoil from the excavation is dumped in the deep water.
Then the material is spread out.
Finally a small excavator landscapes the ground into many small islands - see behind the excavator.
This is the major part of a project funded by English Nature through Defra’s Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund or ALSF.
Funding also from Sussex Wildlife Trust, Sussex Ornithological Society and the Friends of Rye Harbour Nature Reserve.