WEYMOUTH'S Radipole Lake nature reserve has been given a major facelift to help boost wildlife using the site.

The RSPB, which manages Radipole, hired a 13-ton excavator to remove four former angling points and excavate 1.5km of ditches that were choked with silt and organic matter.

RSPB spokesman Nick Quintrell said: "We are very excited by this work, the first such for nearly 30 years.

"Removing the fishing swims and the paths leading to them has created sheltered gullies between the reeds that are already being used by water rail and kingfishers.

"As the vegetation returns to the margins of these inlets it should provide sheltered foraging habitat for our rarest visitor, the bittern.

"Encouragingly, one was seen emerging from one of these areas the day after it was excavated."

Bittern are a stocky relative of the heron, that are well adapted to living within reedbeds, but their camouflaged plumage can make them difficult to spot on the ground.

One or two of these rare birds usually over-winter on Radipole and Lodmoor and it is hoped that clearing vegetation and silt from the reserve's network of ditches will make it easier for visitors to see them as well as allowing them to flourish and perhaps one day breed.

Nick said: "The ditches on the site were originally designed as a water control mechanism to help promote reed growth, but subsequent research has shown that ditches can be designed to provide excellent habitat in their own right.

"By gently grading the sides of ditches we can provide the shallow margins that bittern favour for hunting the small fish, insects and amphibians on which they depend, whereas the old ditches were so overgrown that the bittern could barely squeeze along them!"

It is hoped that the excavation work currently taking place will be the start of a massive restoration project covering much of Radipole Lake over the next few winters.

As well as dredging and re-profiling the remaining ditches, there are plans to excavate large swathes of reedbed.

This process - known as bed-lowering - will reverse the drying out that has taken place over many decades and will eventually provide a rich mosaic of reed-fringed ditches, pools and open water for the benefit of both people and wildlife.

As well as improving the site for wildlife, the current works are also designed to improve views around the reserve.

Mr Quintrell said: "Opening up vistas to enable visitors to look along the ditches and niches being created within the reeds allows them to see the wildlife without being seen, to take a peek into the often unseen world of the reserve's reedbed birds and animals.

"Already we are seeing plenty of water shrew and water voles, animals that are all too often obscured by vegetation and, as the ditches recover, they will attract more and more rare and wonderful wildlife."