North Lancashire Reserves Officer, Reuben Neville, said: “We have been managing the area of wet grassland at Heysham Moss since we bought the site in 2004. Since then, changes in the surrounding landscape and recent extremes in annual weather patterns have forced us to re-evaluate our priorities for the area.”

The reserve sits within the Morecambe Coast and Lune Estuary area and is surrounding by low lying pastoral landscape of essentially coastal grazing marsh to the east and Heysham village to the west. In the past the extensive areas of grazing marsh would have supported breeding waders and wintering wildfowl.

Agricultural intensification, notably land drainage and more intensive silage production has meant that breeding waders such as redshank and lapwing have now been lost from the local area. At the time the Trust bought Heysham Moss several pairs of lapwing were still recorded breeding in and around the reserve.

Reuben said: “More recently, developments locally have isolated the reserve which is now surrounded on three sides. With breeding waders or wintering wildfowl unlikely to ever return to the areas of wet grassland, our management priorities have switched to enhancing the botanical diversity. A number of uncommon species like sneezewort, greater birds-foot trefoil, skullcap and greater burnet are still present although these are now restricted and the area has become dominated by soft rush.

“Changing weather patterns, with very wet summers and relatively dry springs, have caused challenges for management and, in some years, we have been unable to put in place the desired cutting and grazing regimes. We need to put in the correct management regimes to stop the growth of less desirable species and benefit biodiversity on the reserve.”