Witton Dene Nature Reserve, Witton Gilbert, Durham.

Learn to identify a variety of tree species from their bark and buds with our local arboriculture expert. And while you are in the Dene, help with some maintenance work and have a go at the Tree Quiz!

Meet on Coach Lane at the entrance to St. Michael & All Angels Church. For further details, contact Penny Minney on (0191) 371 1295. Children welcome. Twig display, introductory talk and light refreshments in the church.

Led by  Dougie Nisbet (local arboriculture expert!) and Fran Mudd (Wild Woods Project Officer)

Pupils from Bill Quay Primary, Wardley Primary and The Drive Primary Schools in Gateshead will be taking part in Forest School sessions to explore and discover more of the outdoor environment.    A total of 155 children will visit the Forest School site at Bill Quay Farm between January and May.

Forest schools, an innovative education approach to outdoor play and learning, originated in Scandinavia in the 1950s.  Children will spend half a day out in the woodlands taking part in a variety of activities such as weaving willow, making mud sculptures and leaf pictures, learning how to feed different animals and even building their own rain shelters.

For more information call Kirsty on 0191 5843112.

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The Trust will be examining the impact of the European Union’s Water Framework Directive (WFD), which was adopted in the UK in 2000 to replace the General Quality Assessment. The WFD, which covers a wide range of water quality issues, including suitability for wildlife, classifies bodies of water on a scale of ‘bad to high’, with high being almost pristine. Part of the Framework’s aim is for all waterways to have achieved ‘good’ status by 2015.

The aim of the Trust’s work, part of the Living Waterways project, is to help the Environment Agency to identify why water bodies do not currently meet ‘good’ status and then work out how problems can be addressed. Living Waterways is a partnership between the Environment Agency and Durham, Northumberland and Tees Valley Wildlife Trusts to improve river habitats for wildlife and people. This partnership is already delivering projects across the region aimed at finding sustainable solutions to flood risk through community involvement and improvements in habitats. A new officer has joined the Wildlife Trust’s Living Waterways team to help with new WFD project.

The new project officer, Andrew Zealand said: “Using all the available information, we will suggest possible measures that could be used to improve the status of the water bodies to ‘good’, including ways in which the habitat can be improved for wildlife. The types of problems I’ll be working on are caused by what is known as diffuse pollution. There’s no single point where the pollution occurs, making solutions difficult. That’s why a joint approach between the Wildlife Trusts and Environment Agency is so important.”

Karen Fisher, Living Waterways project officer at the Environment Agency said: “I am really looking forward to working with Durham Wildlife Trust to take this new and exciting project forward to improve water quality across the area.”

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A sunny 1st of February saw team work in action when the Heart of Durham Project joined forces with Foundation UK, a charity which works across the North East tackling social exclusion with young and vulnerable adolescence with drug and alcohol related problems. Foundation UK’s clients helped to clear scrub and tree brashings from a site at Buts field near Satley, County Durham. This site has the potential for being a very valuable habitat for the small pearl border fritillary butterfly, a UK BAP species, and one which the Heart of Durham project is conserving successfully in other parts of Durham.

A roaring fire was the perfect excuse for “alfresco” dining, with foil wrapped potatoes cooking in the embers and cans of hot dogs warming in the ash. Foundation UK aims to empower their clients to improve skills and attain and sustain their independence. Working in the countryside is for some of these youngsters a new and challenging experience, the partnership of DWT and Foundation UK teamed together are making a difference to young people whilst making a difference to wildlife.

Living Waterways volunteers helped the Rainton Green Group and the Wear Rivers Trust clean up the Rainton Burn on Saturday 14^th January. There was a fantastic turn out of over 20 volunteers who braved the cold to pull rubbish and large debris out of the waterway. Blockages in river channels can cause barriers to fish, eel and water voles and can also cause an increased risk of flooding to surrounding homes and businesses.

In total, two van-loads of rubbish was removed from the stream and kindly transported off-site by Sunderland City Council. The next step of the project will be the removal of several large, wind-blown, trees that are blocking the channel further downstream. The Living Waterways project, with the help of funding from Biffaward, will be working to remove these blockages in the next few weeks. The Living Waterways’ Rainton to Eppleton Water Vole Corridor project has recently received funding from Biffaward to improve 6.5km of riparian habitat for water voles. The project will include the thinning of trees and scrub, de-silting of stream beds and the planting of water vole food plants.

Living Waterways is an Environment Agency Initiative delivered by the Durham, Northumberland and Tees Valley Wildlife Trusts. To find out more about the project or for information on how you can get involved, please contact Michael Rogers at Durham Wildlife Trust on 0191 584 3112 or email mrogers@durhamwt.co.uk.

The Wear Rivers trust is encouraging community groups to get involved with improving their local environment and reporting wildlife sightings in their area. At this stage we’re meeting people and finding out what they want/expect in terms of help. Look out for more summer activities once the project gets rolling! For more information visit http://www.wear-rivers-trust.org.uk/

The Trust has acquired around 7.5 hectares of land at its Stanley Moss nature reserve near Sunniside for a nominal £1 from local developer the Banks Group, after Banks decided to return it to community ownership.

The land is degraded peat bog that was previously planted up with conifers, which were felled two years ago as part of the first phase of the restoration of the land back to peat bog, a habitat that is vital for endangered flora and fauna.

The new acquisition will allow the Trust to extend Stanley Moss and re-hydrate the area by blocking up old forestry drains and drainage grips, and to then restore the rare habitat as well as protect the existing neighbouring peat bog.

Mark Dowdall, environment and community director at the Banks Group, says: “We’ve had a long relationship with the Durham Wildlife Trust and have supported many of their projects across our home county over the years.

“Their restoration plans for this important site will make a huge difference to the local environment and we’re very pleased to be playing our part in enabling them to be realised.

Trust Reserves Manager Mark Richardson added: “This purchase is important because Stanley Moss is one of the very few remaining blanket peat bogs found in the lowlands of County Durham. It extends over approximately 7.5 hectares and once covered a much larger area but the vast majority of this habitat type has been lost due to opencast coal mining, forestry and agricultural improvements.”

The reserve’s vegetation has developed over a thick layer of peat and supports large stands of heather, bilberry and common cotton grass, which carpet the bog in shades of pink, purple and white in the summer. The surface of the bog is waterlogged in many places providing habitats for sphagnum mosses and other uncommon plants such as crowberry, cross-leaved heath and hare’s-tail cotton grass. The site is also important for birds with meadow pipits, skylark and lapwing known to breed on site.

Mark continued: “It is now acknowledged that peat bogs make a massive contribution in the fight against climate change due to their ability to store carbon. It is thought that peat actually contains about 65% of the planet’s carbon dioxide and peat bogs store twice as much carbon as all of the world’s forests. However, peat bogs have been lost at an alarming rate in the recent past, which makes the restoration and protection of peat bogs such as Stanley Moss so important.

“Durham Wildlife Trust intend to restore Stanley Moss back to its former glory by reinstating the water table in areas where the bog has dried out.

“The acquisition of this further land adjacent to Stanley Moss is the final piece in the jigsaw and safeguards its future for generations to come.”

There is also a public footpath that runs along the boundary of the site but since it is  waterlogged, the Trust plans to install boardwalks across the wetter areas to improve public access.

Dave Wainwright – Butterfly Conservation

Rainton Meadows commencing 12pm

Call 0191 5843112 to book your place

3 miles (Medium)

Start at northwest entrance to Hawthorn Dene, outside Kinley Hall livery at the end of surfaced road marked ‘no through road’ from north end of Hawthorn village, near Easington Colliery.

GR NZ424459 OS Map 88, Explorer 308

Buses: Arriva 23, 31, Go North East 203 to Hawthorn Village

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The project will use a Geographic Information System (GIS) to plot such sites, with an emphasis placed on locations where members of the public can enjoy nature, including sites that provide beautiful views and areas where people can carry out recreational activities, such as hiking and wildlife watching.

The Trust itself runs 26 nature reserves which are visited by thousands of people each year and Project Officer Chloe Bellamy said: “Our experience as a Trust is that accessible countryside and nature reserves provide opportunities for exploration and learning about the natural environment.  To help us value and protect these areas, we first need to understand how different sites combine together to deliver these services to us.

“An example of the study is the role of urban parks. They can help regulate city air temperatures and reduce the likelihood of local flooding, as well as creating spaces for people to relax, play and encounter wildlife.

“The end result will be a series of maps illustrating how these services are distributed across the landscape and highlighting sites or areas which should be of conservation concern. These maps will be easy to interpret, providing us with useful visual aids for increasing public awareness of the wider value of nature. They will also be detailed enough to inform local planning and policy decisions, such as highlighting the importance of local wildlife sites or areas of green belt.

“A GIS tool will be developed which will allow the maps to be easily updated and run by other Wildlife Trusts across the country, allowing each Trust to generate their own maps.”

Trust director Jim Cokill said: “Sometimes it can be easy to forget the importance of wildlife to people’s lives. Seeing birds in flight or otters on rivers or badgers at dusk are some of the wonderful experiences in life and this project will underline that point. The information we gather will also give us extra information to help us act as an advocate for wildlife when large development proposals are planned.”