Digging for Whitlingham!

Kate
May 13
2 min read

Updated: May 20

You may have noticed there's been some heavy machinery down at the far end of the Great Broad during the past week. But what are they doing there?

They're creating a series of three shallow water scrapes to create a new habitat zone for wading birds, other wildlife and invertebrates to explore and thrive in.

What's a scrape?

The Wildfowl and Wetland Trust's definition is:

Scrapes are shallow ponds, less than 1m in depth, which hold rain or flood water seasonally but stay damp for most of the year. Shallow with gently sloping edges, you can see them in fields all over the UK but most often on farmland, where they create obvious water features. They make a significant difference to wildlife.

You will soon see three of these settling in at Whitlingham Country Park as the excavated earth softens into the landscape and nature takes over the newly created space. The scrapes will be planted appropriately to support their establishment.

What's happened so far?

The diggers broke ground last Wednesday. See the images below for more detail about these creations.

A white excavator in the foreground and a yellow excavator in the background both on mown grass. There are two workmen in orange high visibility clothing to the right in the background as well as trees.

An illustrated diagram of the three scrapes in the foreground, with a wider drawn map of their position in the park in the background. In the centre are photos and diagrams of what the scrapes may look like once planted up.

As the diagram above demonstrates, the three scrapes will have different shapes and depths, just the same as the neighbouring Great Broad was designed to have different depths for a variety of uses and habitats. Some areas will actually be more pond-like as they will be deeper.

These new water spaces will become muddy margins during warmer months when the majority of the water dries up. This process is entirely normal for scrapes and they benefit a wide range of wildlife, even without the water being present.

If you weren't aware, the Great Broad was created through gravel extraction, mainly during the 1990s, so it is not a natural water space either. These scrapes will be a great addition to the variety of spaces for wildlife on this site, as well as providing another way to mitigate fluctuating water levels throughout the seasons and avoid flooding onto public paths.

Where does this work fit within the other projects at Whitlingham?

Our wider Great Broad Regeneration Project is in full swing, with various aspects already complete or underway. See the related blog posts about our drainage pipe work and wet willow habitat zone, which neighbours these new scrapes.

Next time you're walking the Great Broad paths, take a look at progress for yourself and see what wildlife you can spot as you explore.

UPDATE 20.05.26