Bird bosses buy up extra Marshside land

RSPB bosses have put pen to paper to acquire grasslands the size of 38 football pitches next to their Marshside nature reserve.

Staff at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds won £464,000 funding from the Biffa Award, which allowed the society to buy Crossens Inner Marsh, adjacent to their reserve at Marine Drive. The Biffa Award is a charity whose grants scheme gives funds to projects that provide/improve biod- iversity, community spaces, cultural facilities and places for outdoor recreation.

The wet grasslands marsh is already home to over-wintering birds such as wigeons, pink-footed geese, black-tailed godwits and golden plovers.

The funding, which allowed the charity to purchase the land, will also fund major improvements to the marsh to benefit rare and unusual wildlife including nesting lapwings, redshanks, and avocets – which are the emblem of the RSPB – along with brown hares.

The habitat works, which will take place after the breeding season this summer, will also improve the control of water levels on the reserve helping to prevent prolonged flooding of the rare coastal grassland.