Wet Willow Wildlife

Habitat creation, enhancement and restoration

We are improving wet willow habitats across around 27 sites in Trafford, Mersey Gateway, Salford, Wigan and Bolton, identified as having high potential to boost wet willow species.

Habitat connectivity

By strategically creating and improving habitat pockets connected by linking habitats, we are enhancing connectivity for wet willow species, allowing for greater movement and dispersal over a wide geographic area.

Community engagement

We are involving people in the project through citizen science surveying, habitat conservation opportunities, partnerships with local groups and a variety of community events to raise awareness and help involve local communities in their local nature.

Species conservation

The project aims to benefit a range of species, including the red-listed Willow Tit, which is Britain’s fastest declining resident bird. Willow Tit numbers have dropped by more than 90 per cent in just over half a century – in their Greater Manchester stronghold breeding pairs have decreased from 300 in 1984 to around 120 according to estimates. 

By providing suitable habitat and enhancing connectivity, the project contributes to the survival and recovery of threatened species.

Capacity building

We are providing opportunities for skills development and capacity building through practical conservation activities, volunteer programmes and training initiatives, empowering local communities to actively participate in nature recovery.

Project funders and timescales

The Wet Willow Wildlife project has funding from the Government's Species Survival Fund. The fund was developed by Defra and its “Arm’s-length bodies”. It is being delivered by The National Lottery Heritage Fund in partnership with Natural England and the Environment Agency.

The project runs until February 2026 and will leave in place long-term plans for the continued management of improved sites. Through the project, we hope to identify areas of further opportunity to bring together a North-West-wide wet willow network.

Habitats and Species

Wet willow woodlands are damp, scrubby, somewhat untidy areas made up of tree species that thrive in wet, waterlogged or seasonally-flooded soils, including various species of willow, birch and alder. The group of species in wet woodland can vary from place to place; willow trees particularly thrive in the wet woodlands across our region, which is why we refer to these areas as wet willow habitat.

Willow Tit in our region – which is somewhat of a hotspot for the species – make their homes in wet willow woodland with scrubby bramble, nettle and hawthorn. They love woodland that many people would see as scruffy, with impenetrable brambles, rotting wood and wet ground. These damp areas provide the conditions for Willow Tit to dig nest holes, which they do every year, and find their food. Making space for this unruly habitat is important to their survival and thriving in the region.

It is crucial that their territories are connected. The undervalued habitat on which they rely can be lost too and become broken up through development, and if left can become too mature. If there are too many mature broadleaved trees other species such as blue tit and woodpeckers can move in and outcompete or predate Willow Tit.

Other species like Poplar Hawk Moth, Small Sallow Mining bee (Andrena praecox) and Lesser Redpoll also associate with this habitat and will benefit. This type of woodland supports a further range of wildlife, including invertebrates (including Hymenoptera species), bats, amphibians, mammals and of course plants including helleborines, mosses, lichens and ferns. Willow itself plays an important role in the ecosystem.  For instance, almost exclusively providing spring emergent queen bumblebees with their first pollen feed of the year.

Our work on the project will build on previous Great Manchester Wetlands partners’ approaches to willow tit conservation in Wigan and Trafford and through Citizen Science approaches.