Cumbria Wildlife Trust - (Conservation Day) and Reflection
Total Hours completed to date: 9 hours. This weekend (19th December) I attended a conservation day run by Cumbria Wildlife Trust. This was a work party aimed at providing more suitable habitats for 'Raft Spiders'. Raft Spiders are large, chunky spiders with chocolate-brown bodies with pale yellow striping each side. They tend to live by water, around the edges of ponds, or on wet boggy land as they use the vibration on the water surface to detect prey with their front legs. They are able to skim along the surface of the water and can even dive underwater when threatened. Raft Spider -wikipedia.org Although Raft Spiders are thought to be quite common they are rarely seen and there have not been many surveyed in this area of Cumbria. We were working on a lowland mire, which had previously had water drainage channels dug to allow grazing. Cumbria Wildlife Trust and the owner are working together building dams to allow water to build up into small ponds to form bette...
