Ardeer Quarry LNR Public Consultation

[iain]

Hi,

Darg Road? This winter we created a small 'bee (and wasp) bank' just down from Dubbs Road - at the edge of the wildflower meadow. I wonder if this is the one you mean? Or perhaps there's some other sandy business going on at the site. It will probably take a couple of years for bees to use the bank. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, because it might take us a year or so to get permission and funding to 're-do' the wildflower meadow by planting a few hundred plug plants.

Iain

[5eulbdog7]

Quite right Dubbs road. I expect some animals will use it as a toilet. Walked over and back to the old bogside racecourse to-day and saw a sparrow hawk flushing what looked like felts.

[John Donnelly]

Felts ???

JD.

[5eulbdog7]

Hi JD a felt is another name for a fieldfare which is a winter visitor and they go about in large flocks often feeding on hawthorn berries. There were about a dozen and i was surprised to see them as i would have thought they had all cleared off to Scandinavia.They were a bit far away but there size and numbers made me think of fielfares.

[John Donnelly]

Thanks for that. I know the fieldfare; blackbird family, bit bigger and and more browny-red ??

JD.

[little plum]

I know this is outwith the reserve but still in the Ardeer quarry area therefore didn't want to start a new topic. Who has been involved in exposing the brickwork and clean up of the old canal ?

[iain]

Hi,

The work was done by a contractor hired by the Council. The farmers across the road at Ardeer Mains had been trying to get the Council to do the work for years. At Christmas, I bumped into one of the farmers inspecting the ditches at Ardeer Quarry. He explained that, because he was entertaining the idea of growing barley instead of keeping cattle, he was keen to see the ditches dredged to avoid his neighbouring fields being flooded and thus rendered unsuitable for crop growing. He was understandably in bashing-heads-together mode and was about to try one or two new approaches to getting the Council to do the work. He obviously succeeded!

Iain

[aland]

took a stroll round the quarry today with my wee dug, basically was in stevenston anyway so decided on somewhere different.. cannot believe the changes to when i were a nipper, no buckie bottles, needles or beer cans. nice paths, pleasant place for a stroll. did notice new football pitches on what was the rec playing fields and the remains of the wee steam railway. but seriously what a change but still a work in progress with the rec's old tennis courts still derelict, surely a ideal place for a floodlit 3g football pitch

[little plum]

iain, thanks for the explanation. I had noticed that the ditches around the site had been cleaned out, my first thought was, it was part of the vole project, how will this affect the planned wetland area ? As for Gallagher's farm ( Ardeer Mains ) I'm not convinced that his reason for better drainage is to grow grain crops, the fields opposite the farm that run up to the main road would have been more suitable.

Would I be right in saying that the orchard has been increased in land area.?

[iain]

Aland, there has been talk within the Council of the amenity greenspace at the Rec/Quarry becoming a Sportscotland hub. I find this implausible though. Although I heard it from someone quite senior in the Council, I only heard it once and not much detail was given.

LP, you’re right, last week the Gallaghers (or the farmer who’s renting their fields) ploughed the topmost field at Ardeer Mains ready for sowing. It looked like one of the lower fields was also about to be ploughed, but, with much of their land apparently not destined for crops, it looks like they can pick and choose the driest fields.

The flooding issues and work on the ditches will not effect the proposed new wetland on the reserve. If anything, the new wetland should help mitigate flood risk in the area by storing water at times of peak flow. However, a flood risk survey conducted last year concluded that the new wetland would, if anything, have only a small positive effect in that regard.

The orchard has indeed expanded. This was done mainly by felling some of the young, non-native Grey Alders behind the orchard and replacing them with fruit trees. In addition to this, just over a month ago 8 further trees were planted, including a couple of Evereste crab apple trees.

A few weeks after we re-installed the ‘vandal proof’ polycarbonate screen on the notice board (after it was removed and dumped elsewhere on the reserve) the polycarbonate (and noticeboard contents) was removed again and this time set on fire. If there’s an event on the reserve in the future, then we’ll stick up an A4 advertisement poster unprotected on the board a week or so beforehand; however, because of repeated vandalism and the resultant short life expectance of anything on the board, the board will never be able to house detailed information about the reserve.

Iain

[5eulbdog7]

The proposed wetland if it ever happens will be shallow and will tip over in heavy rain. The main problem will be silting up, especially with all the ferrous salts washed down into the area.This will mean the wetland will need to be cleaned out on a regular basis. Kind of think its not a great idea and as money's tight a better idea would be to flood round the old island in the main pond. The exsisting path is unuseable in winter and hence no loss. The sad thing is the main quarry pond is not part of the nature reserve but it should be.

[iain]

Hi,

You pick-up on an interesting issue with a new, shallow wetland. It’s an issue commonly brought up by the Council, who worry about who’s going to ‘manage’ the wetland in the coming decades - who's going to cut back the reeds, keep the water open, dredge it, etc. Although the new wetland won’t take water from the Master Gott (which, of course, is full of silt), it’ll still silt-up a bit as the decades go on. However, the silting-up process will be very slow, especially because it will be a large wetland and the water flow into the wetland will be very slow. The worst case scenario is that in a few decades time there is more marshland and reedbed than open water. That’s not a bad thing. Most people think of wetlands as neat and tidy ponds with an island and a pair of swans (e.g. the Ardeer Rec Pond/old Quarry pond). Far more biodiverse and fitting for a formal nature reserve are heavily vegetated wetlands. Indeed, a heavily-vegetated marsh or swamp would come closest to approximating the kind of habitat that existed at the site historically.

In a few decades time, folk might decide to dredge the wetland. However, most ecologists would argue that they’d be wrong to do so. But, if the new wetland proved to be a regionally important site for wintering wildfowl over the coming decades - a quality that would be negatively influenced by the loss of too much open water - then I would see a logic in dredging it.

Iain