We are fundraising for a citizen science project to monitor the coastal changes at Portbury Wharf, a reprint of our popular nature reserve map, as well as monthly spotting cards and monthly website costs.
✔️ increase biodiversity at Portbury Wharf wetlands on the Severn Estuary near Bristol
✔️ help people learn about the wetlands and its wildlife.
If you don't see wildlife and can’t identify it, you are unlikely to care. Once you see it, once you learn its name, you will care.
With over 30,000 Portishead and Portbury residents living close to this wetland, plus visitors from Bristol and beyond, your donation can help to inspire a lot of people!
This is a citizen science project to monitor the changes, such as erosion, on our stretch of coastline. Mobile phone users will be able to take part by placing their phone in a cradle at a fixed location, taking a photo and uploading it. This will create a record of the changes to the landscape over time. The first post will be placed by Portishead Pier to monitor Portbury Wharf salt marsh and will be the
Funding required for the post, signage, fixings and mobile phone cradle is approximately £500
We created a nature reserve map which is available as a digital download or you can pick up a printed version from the leaflet holders by the reserve entrances.
These paper maps are so popular that we need another reprint. This will cost approximately £200.
Every month there is something to spot on the nature reserve so we have created spotting cards.
It costs £30-40 to reprint a monthly card.
We are run by volunteers, so have no salaries to pay and we spend as little as possible on admin. However, we have to have Public Liability Insurance to cover our activities and pay website hosting fees.
This costs approximately £200.
Salt marshes are incredibly important habitats but the fragile one at Portbury Wharf was in trouble. The large increase in footfall killed the special salt marsh plants, eroded the marsh and drove off endangered wildlife. Visitors didn't realise the importance of this habitat nor that it is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. So the Friends ran an awareness campaign to explain the role salt marshes and their plants play in a) helping the climate (they are more effective than forests in burying atmospheric carbon) and b) protecting and feeding endangered wildlife.
We worked with Natural England, to install posts and signs marking a less destructive public route and encouraged people to stay above the post and away from the fragile areas of salt marsh and its wildlife.
The results have been dramatic and it is thanks to the positive action of the community that the salt marsh is recovering well.
Funds raised approximately £2,000
We installed a wetlands nature trail on Portbury Wharf Nature Reserve. The trail consists of lecterns at each of the 12 different habitats on the reserve. This is an ever changing display with 12 winter panels and 12 summer panels, plus over 70 changeable squares to display on the panels telling visitors what to look for at different times of the year.
There are also 12 metal Wilbur Water Voles to find along the trail.
The Wetlands Trail was funded by a £20,000 grant from the National Grid Community Fund.
Water Voles were re-introduced here some years ago but a large section of the waterway in which they live is in poor condition and reverting to scrubland. So we will be working with North Somerset Council, who manage and own the nature reserve to improve this habitat. While NSC pay for the general running costs of the nature reserve there is no money for larger scale biodiversity improvements. So the Friends will have to raise the necessary funds to clear banks of trees and brambles. This will let in more light and encourage new growth of both aquatic plants in the water ways as well as bank side vegetation on which Water Voles feed.
Most passers by are totally unaware of the wildlife here. Yet metres away wading birds are feeding on the marine worms and crustaceans in the mud, many of these birds are now threatened species. A permanent, public telescope and accompanying species ID panel would enable people to see and learn about these waders that live alongside us.
We would like to increase the biodiversity and habitat for wading birds on the reserve by forming a wader scrape in the North Pool field.
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