The Hidden Wildlife of the LN9 Waterways
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Blog Post 001 — LN9Lens Community Blog
Always adhere to the Country Code.
Walk the bank of the River Bain on a still morning and you might think you have the place entirely to yourself. The water moves quietly through the town, past the mill buildings, under the bridges and out into the Lincolnshire countryside beyond. It looks peaceful. Unhurried. Almost empty.
It isn't.
The Bain and the network of drainage channels that spread across the LN9 area are alive with wildlife, most of it going about its business completely unnoticed by the people walking past. That feels like something worth putting right.
The flash of blue you almost missed
If you have ever been stopped in your tracks by a dart of electric blue low over the water and wondered what on earth that was, the answer is a kingfisher. They are here on the Bain and on several of the quieter drainage channels around Horncastle, and they are genuinely one of the most striking birds you will ever see in the British countryside. They are also surprisingly easy to miss. They move fast, they keep low, and they do not hang around.
The best chance of spotting one is to stand still on a bank where overhanging vegetation meets open water and wait. Patience is the main requirement. Kingfishers use the same perches repeatedly, so if you find a likely spot and nothing appears today, it is worth trying again.
Signs in the mud
You are far more likely to find evidence of an otter than the animal itself. They are out there along the Bain and the wider waterway network, but otters are largely nocturnal and deeply cautious of human activity. What they leave behind, though, is worth looking for: the distinctive five-toed footprints pressed into soft mud at the water's edge, the flattened slides where they enter the water, and occasionally the faint, distinctly fishy scent they mark their territories with.
Otters almost disappeared from Lincolnshire waterways in the latter half of the last century, driven out by pollution and pesticide run-off. Their return is genuinely good news. Finding their tracks on the Bain is a sign that the water quality has improved enough to support them, which reflects well on the river and on the wider landscape around it.
The one to worry about
Water voles are in serious trouble across the UK. Habitat loss and predation by American mink have sent their numbers into sharp decline over recent decades, and what was once a familiar sight along any slow-moving waterway is now far less common. They do still live along sections of the LN9 waterway network, but they are not thriving everywhere.
They are worth knowing how to recognise. A water vole is rounder and blunter-faced than a rat, with a shorter, furred tail and a characteristic plop as it enters the water. They tend to feed along a short stretch of bank, so if you see one, chances are it lives close by. Giving them a wide berth is the most useful thing you can do.
Worth knowing too: at Harrison's Holme, in the fields where the River Bain and the River Waring meet just outside Horncastle, active work is under way to restore and expand exactly this kind of waterway habitat. The project — led by East Mercia Rivers Trust — is reconnecting the rivers to their floodplain and creating new wetland features, with water voles among the species it is specifically designed to benefit. It is happening right here, on our patch. That feels significant.
What the drainage channels hold
The straight drainage channels that run across the fields around Horncastle do not look particularly exciting from the road, but they support more life than you might expect. Grey herons stand motionless in the shallows, waiting. Little egrets, dazzlingly white and still somewhat exotic-feeling in a Lincolnshire field, have become a regular sight over the past couple of decades. Moorhens bustle along the margins. In late summer, dragonflies in colours that belong in a warmer country altogether skim the surface.
These channels are not wild in the way a chalk stream is wild. They were engineered, and they are managed. But the wildlife does not much mind that.
A little local history underfoot
The route along the Bain through Horncastle follows the line of the old Horncastle Canal, opened in 1802 and fed by both the Bain and the Waring. It closed to navigation in the early twentieth century, but the waterway is still there in the landscape, and so is the wildlife that has made the margins its own ever since. You are walking through history as much as countryside, even if it does not always announce itself.
What you can do
None of this requires any specialist equipment or particular knowledge. You need a pair of eyes, a willingness to move slowly, and a certain amount of patience. Early mornings and late afternoons tend to be more rewarding than midday. A quiet presence on a bank beats a noisy one every time.
And if you see something, we would genuinely like to know about it. A kingfisher on the Bain, otter tracks in the mud, a water vole going about its business along the margin — these sightings matter. They are part of what makes this patch of Lincolnshire worth knowing and worth looking after. LN9Lens is here to build a record of it, and that record only gets better the more people contribute to it.
Come and share what you find at www.ln9lens.com. This is our patch. Let's keep a record of what lives here.
Always adhere to the Country Code.
Published by Tony of Horncastle, LN9Lens — Our Patch. Our News. No social media mix!