{"id":1837,"date":"2020-04-17T10:35:48","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T10:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/letcombebrook.org.uk\/?p=1837"},"modified":"2020-04-17T10:35:49","modified_gmt":"2020-04-17T10:35:49","slug":"spring-update-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/letcombebrook.org.uk\/index.php\/2020\/04\/17\/spring-update-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Update 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At the time of writing this, we are well into the Coronavirus lock-down and I for one am finding community green space even more important to my health and wellbeing. To be able to get out and go for a walk and get a quick \u201cgreen fix\u201d certainly lifts my mood and is a welcome break from being stuck inside.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nThe Letcombe Brook runs right through the middle of many of our local green spaces providing an important green corridor for people and wildlife.  At this time of year, the willow trees bordering the brook are a magnet for several returning migrant birds such as the blackcap, chiffchaff and aptly named willow warbler.  The many insects that emerge from the Brook are an important food source for these birds hungry after a long flight and keen to get in breeding condition. \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Blackcap, often seen along the brook at this time of\nyear.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Water Voles<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Water voles are also more active at this time of year and\nalthough rapidly declining in much of England, they are doing okay on sections\nof the Letcombe Brook.  Water voles are\nmuch larger than our other vole species and sometimes mistaken for rats, but I\ncan assure you they are much cuter and well worth looking out for, but you will\nhave to be patient and quiet!  Voles are\neasily disturbed and will dive into the water and disappear into one of their\nunderwater tunnels at the first hint of danger such as an approaching dog or\nheavy footsteps.  In fact, disturbance\ncan be a major problem for water voles as they need to eat about 80% of their\nbody weight every day which means they spend an awful lot of time eating!  Please don\u2019t encourage your dogs to swim in\nthe Brook as this sort of heavy disturbance can be a real problem and causes erosion\nto the banks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Water Vole feeding on the banks of Letcombe Brook<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Water voles have smaller ears and eyes and a more rounded\nnose than the brown rat.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voles feed on many waterside plants and struggle to survive\non heavily shaded sections of river that tend to have bare banks and\nsubsequently not enough food.  It\u2019s for\nthat reason that Letcombe Brook Project work hard to ensure sections of the\nriver that have colonies of water vole are kept open and managed in a way that\nwill help this protected species survive. \nRemoval of scrub from a riverbank or pollarding a willow tree may seem\nharsh but it allows many more species of much rarer aquatic vegetation to grow\nwhich in turn provides food and shelter for not only voles but brown trout and\nmany species of insects and birds.  We\nare keen to encourage (and help!) Councils and landowners to plant scrub and\ntrees in other areas to provide habitat for birds, bees etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No more abstraction!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Water has been taken from the aquifer that feeds Letcombe\nBrook for nearly the last 70 years to provide local drinking water.  As the local population increased so did the\namount of water abstracted, eventually this was found to be damaging the health\nof the Brook, so water was pumped in from another aquifer to make up for the\ndamage caused – a costly process!  I am\npleased to say that after an extensive project paid for by Thames Water,\nabstraction from Letcombe Brook finished at the end of March 2020.  The Brook is now back to natural flow for the\nfirst time in many years.  It will be\ninteresting to see exactly what that means for the Brook, but I am thankful\nthat it will not suffer the fate of many chalk streams in England that are\nheavily impacted by over abstraction by water companies.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstraction is not the only thing to have come to a halt at\nthe moment \u2013 due to Government guidance around Covid-19, including social\ndistancing rules, we have had to cancel volunteering and events on the Letcombe\nBrook, for the time being which is a real shame.  We will be looking to get activities going\nagain as soon as it\u2019s safe to do so.  In\nthe meantime, stay safe and we hope the Brook and the green space around it\nhelps provide some enjoyment to you in these strange times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the time of writing this, we are well into the Coronavirus lock-down and I for one am finding community green space even more important to my health and wellbeing. To be able to get out and go for a walk and get a quick \u201cgreen fix\u201d certainly lifts my mood and is a welcome break from being stuck inside. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1842,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/letcombebrook.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/letcombebrook.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/letcombebrook.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letcombebrook.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letcombebrook.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1837"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/letcombebrook.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1843,"href":"https:\/\/letcombebrook.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837\/revisions\/1843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letcombebrook.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/letcombebrook.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letcombebrook.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letcombebrook.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}