Gault Wood, a Woodland Trust site in Cambridgeshire has recently won the Fenland District Council’s Great Nature Challenge for 2008.
The Woodland Trust acquired Gault Wood over 12 years ago, as part of the Cambridgeshire Woodland Project and since then it transformed from bare arable field into flourishing young woodland.
The Council’s Great Nature Challenge has revealed a massive interest among local people in nurturing and conserving the nature and wildlife of the Fens.
And, in awarding the Nature Champion Award, the judges were bowled over by work of the March Wildlife Group, which since 1993 has helped the Trust to turn Gault Wood into a woodland wildlife haven.
The volunteer group has planted over 9,000 trees and shrubs, created two ponds, a badger set, cleared dykes, cut hedges, installed bird nesting boxes, and helped the Trust to monitor and maintain the site to create the perfect conditions for local wildlife.
Despite being just 16 acres (7 hectares) the site now supports more than 100 species of wild flower, over 50 recorded bird species, including marsh harriers and three different types of owl, plus at least 16 different mammal species – such as water voles and roe deer. It also looks like the artificial badger set created on-site has had its first set of occupants this year.
The prize giving ceremony for the Great Nature Challenge was held in the Sensory Gardens of St Peter and St Paul’s Church Gardens in Wisbech.
Well, the wood was blessed by the Rev Anthony Chandler in 2001 – so perhaps this spiritual intervention helped the wood to win too!
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