Male Ruddy Darter (Sympetrum sanguineum) - Photo courtesy André Karwath. Click to enlarge... Used under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License

One of the UK’s rarest types of wildlife habitat will be expanded following the announcement of a grant to be paid to Durham Wildlife Trust.

The Trust has received £6,000 from the County Durham Environment Trust (CDENT), which will help conserve and expand magnesian limestone fenland at the Trust’s reserve at Raisby Hill, near Coxhoe, County Durham.

The reserve lies on magnesian limestone rock, which outcrops to create a very scarce type of grassland and ever rarer wetlands, the magnesian limestone fens. This occurs in very few places in Britain. Previous projects delivered by the Trust with support from (DENT identified the location of the area’s few remaining fens, including sections of the Trust’s Raisby Hill grassland nature reserve. Now, financial support from (DENT is allowing the Trust to create new areas of magnesian limestone fen at Raisby Hill.

Durham Wildlife Trust’s fen creation work will begin in the late summer after the bird breeding season and is scheduled for completion in the autumn. The project involves excavation of areas next to the few remaining fragments of fen habitat to allow the fens to naturally expand.

A wide range of plant and animal species will benefit, including dragonflies such as the ruddy darter.

Don’t forget to help spread North East Nature Nature Watch news to your friends, family, colleagues and online social network, It’s so quick and easy to do. If you have a Twitter account then simply click on the green Tweet button at the start of the page. You can also click on the “Share This” link below to flag up the page via email, Twitter (again),Facebook, Myspace, StumbleUpon, Digg and any of your favourite social media networks. Go on do it now, it only takes a few seconds. Thanks:)