Life for the birds at Maiden Erlegh Local Nature Reserve will soon be even better, thanks to the hard work of local volunteers.
As part of Loddon Rivers Week, staff from Earley Town Council’s Ranger Service recently co-ordinated a project involving the South East Rivers Trust, the Loddon Fisheries and Conservation Consultative and the Earley Conservation Volunteers, to create eight floating platforms for the beautiful Maiden Erlegh Lake.
Three types of platform were built, each performing a different function. The first type supports long rooted water plants which then act as a natural filtration device, a second is sown with native pond edge seed which will in time provide wonderful nesting areas for the ducks, coots and moorhens. The third floating platform design is slightly different in that it is covered in artificial turf and planted up with screening plants, ensuring a safe, durable area for water birds to rest and preen out of reach of predators.
Earley Town Council’s Senior Park Ranger, Grahame Hawker expressed the Council’s appreciation, “We are very grateful for all the hard work put in, especially by the Wednesday Volunteers, whose enthusiasm will be gratefully received by the birds living on the lake. The rafts have been built using mostly donated, reused materials so this really is a ‘green’ project.”
