Read how habitat restoration has made a difference at Foxearth Meadows.
For a small reserve of just 11 acres, Foxearth Meadows in Essex has a surprising amount to offer. A key part of the reserve is its network of ponds, pools and ditches, which are crucial for dragonflies and damselflies. Eighteen species of dragonfly and damselfly breed at the reserve and soon, this could increase to 19 – Norfolk hawkers were seen mating on two occasions last year. Monitoring these aerobatic insects and providing good habitat for them is vital. Volunteers have been monitoring dragonflies and damselflies on the reserve for ten years now – with climate change predicted to make our summers hotter and drier, and our winters milder and wetter, gathering data has never been so important. The information gathered from all those transects will help us respond to changes in the abundance and diversity of species present and to any changes in the reserve’s habitats.
Some changes are already in the pipeline. We’re planning an exciting initiative – the creation of new scrapes and ponds, either this autumn or next. Scrapes are shallow and usually dry out in the summer. They can attract wading birds in the winter – snipe for example, and in summer black-tailed skimmers (a dragonfly) will enjoy basking on the bare, dry edges. Ponds are deeper and less prone to drying out. If constructed with a graded edge, aquatic plants will move in. An early coloniser to a new pond is the broad-bodied chaser (another dragonfly). It’s a species that we haven’t seen at the reserve for a few years now. The striking powder-blue males and yellow females are easy to spot, resting frequently on a carefully positioned, waterside perch.
Providing a variety of ponds, ditches and pools helps to sustain a wide range of species at Foxearth Meadows. Our new ponds will provide more breeding habitat for dragonflies and damselflies and will be stepping stones for species moving through the landscape. In the Bible, water is a metaphor for God’s life-giving character. This is reflected so well when we create water-filled spaces – they are colonised very quickly and are soon ‘teeming with life’.
We hope to find Norfolk hawker larvae soon – finding larvae is proof of breeding!