This land had been home to the Quiroste Tribe for thousands of years before European contact. Jered and Nancy founded Pie Ranch in 2002, when they gained access to a 14-acre property shaped like a slice of pie on the south San Mateo coast. Now, in addition to COVID-19, they face tremendous new challenges due to destruction of some critical parts of the farm’s infrastructure, including the historic Steele Ranch house, casualties of the CZU complex wildfires in August. Notable invertebrates include nine species of Odonata, including the Southern Hawker, Aeshna cyanea, as well as a grass-mining fly, Opomyza punctella, and a leaf beetle, Longitarsus reichei, which are locally rare.Visionary, inclusive, equitable, and regenerative are just a few adjectives woven into the community that Jered Lawson and Nancy Vail have built at Pie Ranch over the past eighteen years. The open water bodies also support large numbers of wintering wildfowl. The total area under grassland is 19.0 ha.Ī significant number of water birds breed on the lakes within the SSSI, including water rail, little grebe and great crested grebe. fuchsii, and Early Purple, Orchis mascula. The dominant grass species are False Oat-grass, Arrhenatherum elatius, and Common Bent, Agrostis capillaris, but a variety of herbs are present, including extensive patches dominated by three orchids, Northern Marsh, Dactylorhiza purpurella, Common Spotted, D. Most of the site is covered by free-draining, sandy soils, on which neutral grassland has developed. In total, woodland covers an area of 12.4 ha. In wetter areas, scrub woodland, consisting of a mix of Alder and Willows, Salix spp, is developing. The dominant tree species is Alder, Alnus glutinosa, with a groundcover dominated by weed species, principally Common Nettle, Urtica dioica, and Greater Chickweed, Stellaria neglecta. On the northern edge of the SSSI, a belt of mature woodland was left when the river abandoned its former channel. Part of Marston Lake, the largest of the three permanent lakes, is fringed with tall fen vegetation, characterised by Bulrush, Typha latifolia, Meadowsweet, Filipendula ulmaria, and Common Marsh-bedstraw, Galium palustre. The total area of permanent standing water is 5.5 ha, though the area is subject to periodic flooding, when standing water can temporarily cover the entire site and fresh sediment is deposited. Being part of the river's floodplain, the area is underlain by riverine sands and gravels, which were formerly extracted the abandoned workings were subsequently inundated, creating three lakes which are an important feature of the SSSI. The site occupies an area adjacent to the River Wear, being bounded on the south by the river and on the north by a former river channel which was abandoned when the Wear shifted its course during a flood in 1771. The nature reserve encompasses a visitor centre and a disused sewage works, neither of which is included in the SSSI. Minor revisions were made to the boundaries in 1987. The site was designated as Witton-le-Wear SSSI in 1966. When extraction ceased, the area was taken over by Durham Wildlife Trust, which developed the Low Barns Nature Reserve, on the site. Until 1964, the area now designated as an SSSI was used for sand and gravel extraction.
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