Wildlife Survey

Bird Survey

We’ve conducted six repeat transects in the potential impact area to survey for breeding birds, covering a total of 132 KM. These surveys recorded 69 bird species, including key breeders like bittern, marsh harrier, and woodlark, helping us understand their nesting and foraging locations relative to the proposed LionLink route.

Bearded tit, often identified by its distinctive “ping” call, nests in reedbeds south of Manor Field, a site also supporting a significant post-breeding population. Cetti’s warbler also breed here, and both species protected under the Minsmere-Walberswick SSSI designation. This area is also host to a huge flock of roosting starlings (red-listed  and included on Section 41 of the NERC Act 2006, making them a material consideration in planning) during the winter, which has been particularly large this year, with spectacular murmurations seen regularly at dusk. It is estimated that up to 10,000 individuals have been roosting, and all within 500m of the proposed landfall site!

Woodlark, a rare heathland species related to the skylark, is found near Eastwood Lodge, along with foraging nightjars, where the cable route may pass through or under. These are both qualifying species of the Minsmere-Walberswick SPA.

The reservoir inland, just south of the proposed cable route, supports a variety of waterfowl that have been seen to fly to and from the Westwood Marshes European Site to the south. It is therefore functionally linked to the European Site, giving it and its waterfowl populations, the same level of protection. 

Hobby, a falcon known for catching dragonflies and swifts, nests near the LionLink route and is specially protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.

Bitterns, famous for their booming call, breed in the Minsmere-Walberswick SPA, which contains one of the UK's largest populations. However, rising sea levels and storm breaches threaten the reedbeds they rely on. LionLink’s beach borehole they were unable to dig last year, is located in a particularly sensitive area, as would be any tunnelling under the beach and marsh, with attendant erosion risks that could have catastrophic consequences for bitterns which are very sensitive to seawater incursion.

Bat Survey 

Since the end of April 2024, the bat survey team, numbering six people, have deployed passive recording detectors for five nights at over 40 different locations, of which 26 have been sampled twice to cover different seasons. Over 400 nights have been sampled across all our detectors, and we have already collected over 50,000 unique bat registrations! 

Bat Survey Sites

So far, nine of the seventeen bat species recorded in the UK, have been recorded on our surveys. The two most common species by far are the soprano and common pipistrelle. Barbastelle bats have been shown to be widespread, which is particularly notable as they are endangered and specially protected under Annex 2 of the European Habitats Regulations. Additional species recorded are noctule, Nathusius’ pipistrelle, serotine, Daubenton’s bat, Natterer’s bat and the brown long-eared bat. The use of the field boundaries by these bats is important, particularly around Manor Field, as we now have the data to press NGV into demonstrating how the bats will not be impacted and how they will employ onerous precautionary working measures as mitigation. 

We have also found two important bat roosts, one in the heart of the village and the other immediately adjacent to the proposed cable route. As bat roosts are specially protected from any direct or indirect impacts, NGV will need to show how they will avoid or mitigate impacts on these.

Reptile Survey 

Almost 20 volunteers took to the route of LionLink to survey for reptiles. This involved deploying half-metre squares of roof felting and corrugated material. These dark areas warm up more rapidly than the ambient temperature of their surroundings, such that reptiles, looking for warm basking areas, will concentrate on and below these ‘mats’. We have deployed these mats at over 1000 unique locations, and undertaken over 100 repeat transect surveys to check them for reptiles, focussing mainly around Manor Field, Track Field, the Caravan Park, and acid grassland north of Hoist Covert, to the west.  

 The results have been very impressive.  Many field boundaries support all four reptile species found in the area. A peak count of 81 slow worms has been recorded around Track Field, and good numbers of adders have been recorded around Manor Field, with five regularly using a few mats behind the gardens along the High Street! The mats around the caravan site have recorded grass snake, adder and lots of slow worms, as well as a water vole.

Because all these areas support three or more reptile species, two snake species, and an exceptional population of one species (slow-worm), they qualify under Froglife’s criteria (Advice Sheet 10) as being Key Reptile Sites.

Later in the autumn we moved the mats further north-west, north of Lodge Road. Interestingly, very few reptiles were recorded in these areas, which may be due to the high populations of pheasants nearer their release pens in this area, as pheasants are known to be a significant predator of reptiles.