Nature Recovery Fund: Bringing back wildlife

At Bodenham Lake, we have been increasing the acres of reedbed, an increasingly rare habitat which is important for species including frogs and toads, otter and birds including Cetti’s warbler and reed bunting. Reedbed is also the key habitat for bittern, a bird we would love to hear booming in the Lugg Valley!

While we have made great progress at Bodenham Lake, additional funding could support us to work with more landowners along the valley to expand this habitat and create a network of Lugg Valley Wetlands.  

Over the last decade, we have led and collaborated on a number of projects restoring ponds across the county from a suite of ponds across Bringsty Common to Ice Age ponds across northwest Herefordshire. This work has supported many pond species to retain and grow populations in the county such as the emerald dragonfly, great-crested newt, bogbean, tubular water dropwort and bat species that rely on ponds for foraging,

To build on the work of these successful projects, we need to develop new projects and work with landowners to support them to manage their ponds for biodiversity.