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The Willow Tit at Danes Moss – a rare bird in a precious place 

The proposed development site at Danes Moss is home to one of our rarest birds.

The Willow Tit is a tiny, charismatic bird with a very loud song.  But we are in danger of losing that song for ever, as over the last 50 years, fragmentation and loss of habitat, have led to a dramatic decline in the numbers of Willow Tit.

The lowland raised bog at Danes Moss is one of its last remaining strongholds in Cheshire with the wet woodland and adjacent moss rooms providing the perfect habitat for Willow Tit.  

Willow Tits are shy and retiring birds that are seldom seen. Although it is known that in addition to the birds at Danes Moss, there are populations of Willow Tit in Staffordshire at Rudyard, Tittesworth and Coombes Valley, very little is known about where Willow Tits live elsewhere in Cheshire. Without knowing where they live it is difficult to put measures in place to ensure their survival. 

Acorrding to bto.org, the number of Willow Tits in the United Kingdom declined by 83% between 1995 and 2017. (Image - © Francis C. Franklin / CC-BY-SA-3.0 Unchanged https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Poecile_montanus_kleinschmidti.jpg)

The Willow Tit Survey Project – finding out where the Willow Tits are 

With this in mind local environmental charity Macc Wild Network Trust have funding from the Peak District National Park's Farming in Protected Landscapes Scheme, for an exciting new project to help secure the future of these rare birds in Cheshire. An ecologist has begun survey work to find out where Willow Tits live in the eastern fringes of Cheshire and the western foothills of the Peak District, while a team of volunteer surveyors are expanding this work westwards on to the Cheshire plain. 

The project aims to identify sites with populations of Willow Tit and explore the opportunities to create a network of suitable habitat that will enable the expansion and dispersal of these populations. This would help to secure the future of these threatened and vulnerable birds in an area that is very important for Willow Tit. 

The Race to Save the Willow Tit and Danes Moss, will take place at 7pm Saturday 16th March.

Another exciting element of this project is an event at St Michael's Church in Macclesfield at 7pm on Saturday 16th March.

This event is a joint venture between Macc Wild Network, SAVE DANES MOSS and the Macclesfield RSPB Local Group in partnership with Moorlands Climate Action and Buxton Field Club; a collaboration that demonstrates the depth of concern in Macclesfield and the wider area, not only about the fate of the Willow Tit, but also about the development proposals at Danes Moss. 

The event will explore the Willow Tit as icon of environmental loss that seems almost tailor made to serve as a symbol for Macclesfield's own wildlife gem - the threatened raised lowland bog at Danes Moss.

Both the bird and the place will be celebrated with an uplifting evening of poetry, thought and determined action for nature, and the event will be a springboard for future action to conserve this special bird and the habitats in which they thrive. 

(Image - Macc Wild Network)

This event is supported by the grant from the Peak District National Park and by Macclesfield's zero-waste co-operative, Scoop and Scales.

Tickets are free but booking is essential as it is anticipated that this will be a popular event. Register your place now at this link. 

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The wet woodland at Danes Moss is an ideal habitat for Willow Tit. (Image - Macc Wild Network)