One of the key projects that the Chesham Environmental Group started in an historic wetland area between Moor Road and the River Chess, is continuing to evolve.
Helped by funding from the River Chess Smarter Water Catchment project, Chesham Town Council organised an environmental consultant to assess the area before we started any work in 2023, and we are now in our third year of the resulting 5-year maintenance cycle.
It was quite clear that the whole wetland area was dominated by two main species, so we decided to create more open space and then created two ponds within the new open area, formerly covered by Bulrushes and Greater Willowherb.
The ponds were connected at a high level, but one was much deeper than the other and the next time we were working there, we were surprised to see lots of red damselflies that were investigating the new features to assess their potential for breeding. On a subsequent visit, one of our volunteers saw some small mammal tracks in the newly created open area, which were identified as being left by a Field Vole.
We are also coppicing the willows at one end of our site and using the branches to weave an Otter ‘holt’ where Otters can rest up in the day time before planning their evening feeding strategy. We are very hopeful that the ‘holt’ will be used by our resident River Chess Otters in the near future. The wetland area could also support a good population of Water Voles as they spread out along the River Chess.
