Surfbirds News

The information gathered will be added to British Waterways’ species database which records biodiversity on the inland waterways and is used to help plan the management of its canals and rivers and the protection of their rich array of wildlife.

Kate Humble, ecologist and TV presenter, explains: “Britain’s canals, rivers and lakes are havens for wildlife, from birds, fish and mammals to insects, reptiles and amphibians. People can help protect waterway species by taking part in this summer’s National Waterway Wildlife Survey. Visit your local canal, river or lake in June, July or August and tell British Waterways what you see. Summer is a great time to spot all sorts of waterway wildlife including herons, kingfishers, swans, coots, moorhens, mallards, dragonflies, frogs, toads and newts. You may also be lucky enough to see some of the rarer and shier species including otters, bats and water voles.”

Last year, over 1,100 sightings were recorded by the public across Britain’s waterways, with 60 different species spotted. British Waterways ecologist, Jonathan Brickland, explains: “Over half the population lives within five miles of one of our canals or rivers and a waterway trip is a fun, free and healthy activity for families at weekends, during school holidays or in the long summer evenings.

“It’s important to monitor the wildlife that lives on our canals and rivers. We need to know what’s there so that we can protect and look after our waterway creatures, for example installing bat bricks, bird boxes, otter holts and soft banks for water voles.”

To find out more, people can visit British Waterways’ online guide to waterway wildlife at www.waterscape.com/wildlife and download a reporting form, together with information about places to visit on the waterways. Once they’ve completed their forms, visitors should enter the data on the website. Alternatively, people can take part by filling in a freepost reply form, part of a special wildlife guide for families visiting the waterways, downloadable from Waterscape.com or available by calling British Waterways Customer Service Centre on 01923 201120.

Notes:

British Waterways cares for a 2,000-mile network of canals and navigable rivers throughout Britain, working to provide a sustainable future for the inland waterways and generate maximum benefit and enjoyment to all from this unique environmental and leisure resource. We work with a broad range of public, private and voluntary sector partners to unlock the potential of the inland waterways and generate income for reinvestment in the waterways for the benefit of the millions who visit and care for the waterways every year. www.britishwaterways.co.uk

Canals and rivers are now among the country's most important environmental assets. They provide an ideal habitat and feeding ground for a diverse range of flora and fauna. They reach into the heart of most of Britain’s larger towns and cities and often bring a unique cross-section of the countryside right to urban door-steps for all to enjoy. This wide range of habitats and species, giving canals and rivers a unique biodiversity. Habitats range from the grassland and scrub of cuttings and embankments, boundary hedgerows and towpath verges, to the reedy fringes and the water channel. Waterways are also especially important for wetland species.

There are hundreds of miles of almost uninterrupted hedgerow along the canal network, populated by birds such as sparrows, blackbirds and buntings. The sloping off-side bank of waterways also provides an ideal nesting habitat for moorhens, coots and mute swans, while visiting birds like kingfishers and herons are attracted to the wealth of fish in the canals. There is a great variety of invertebrate life in and along the waterways, including insects, molluscs, and even freshwater sponges. The waterways themselves are rich in fish, such as roach, bream and gudgeon, and each year British Waterways invests in fish re-stocking programmes. The canal environment is visited by, or is home to, a number of protected mammals, whose populations nationally are seriously depleted. These include badgers, otters and bats as well as the increasingly rare water vole, whose habitats received legal protection from April 1998.

Many canals and their surroundings have been designated as wildlife sites, important at international, national or local levels. A number have been identified by the EU as important protection areas for breeding birds (SPAs); others are proposed Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) under the Habitats Directive. In addition there are over 60 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and well over a thousand locally designated Wildlife Sites.