AS a home to thriving colonies of birds, from ducks to waders, there is nothing to suggest the lake has not been there for generations. Just below the top of the moor, it provides a seemingly-perfect natural stopping off point for its feathered visitors.

In fact, less than 12 months ago, it was not a lake at all, but an expanse of moss and rocks, with a few patches of heather and grass. Then, the diggers moved in and created a dam.

"It was the wettest weekend I can remember and, by the end of the weekend, the water was just pouring over the top of the dam. It was unbelievable. I had no idea it was going to be as big as that.

"After about a week, the birds started moving in and it is absolutely teeming in the autumn. Of all the things I have done, that has been the biggest success," says a man who has devoted his life to the moors.

The lake, now home to wigeon, teal, mallard, snipe, peewits and curlews, among others, is the pet project of Sir Anthony Milbank, landowner, campaigner, bird-watcher, environmentalist and, until next month, chairman of the Moorland Association.

"This is my pride and joy. There are lots of islands dotted about, which give clutter and it is very shallow around the edges, which attracts different types of birds, and deeper in the middle," he says.

"In the autumn, when everything is coming down off the moors, the birds drop in here. It is on the edge of the moors so it is a very good stopping-off point."

Sir Anthony's estate covers 6,000 acres around Barningham, near Barnard Castle, with about 4,000 of that taken up with heather moorland. And, trying to stem the moorland's retreat has been one of his principal occupations during his nearly 15 years as the association's first chairman.

The UK has more heather moorland than anywhere else in the world, but about a quarter of it has been lost since 1945. Last year, for the first time in 50 years, there were signs the tide was starting to turn, with an increase in moorland in the North of England. Moorland management schemes have seen 160,000 acres restored over the last 15 years.

But it was not conservation which provided the original impetus for the creation of the Moorland Association in 1986.

Sir Anthony says: "It was the right to roam which was the catalyst, and when proposals for a right to roam were put forward, there was a call to arms. Half a dozen of us got together and said we really must speak with one voice."

The association now has about 250 members, covering three quarters of a million acres. But, although it lost the right to roam battle, it has succeeded in getting a hearing for the moors.

"It was not that we were against access, it is just that, bearing in mind all the bird life and the amount of sheep farming, it was going to be incredibly difficult to introduce an uncontrolled leisure activity," Sir Anthony says.

"We felt it was much better to provide more paths, so at least everybody knew where they were going, and we knew where they were and the birds could find quiet sanctuary areas.

"Having said that, we lost, although the Government is much more aware of the dangers and it has done its best to reduce the worst effects by having limitations on general access."

But, on the eve of his retirement at the age of 61, Sir Anthony can take comfort from the fact the association now counts as a key player whenever the moorlands are under consideration.

'A lot of it is being a voice for the uplands, and whenever there is something about the uplands we are up there. That is our major achievement, that we're well known now and regarded by government and its agencies as people they have to discuss things with.

"The moorlands didn't have a voice at all 15 years ago, but now we have branched out from being a single issue group into agri-environmental issues, that is the main thing now."

And preserving the heather is one of the key environmental issues - not just to ensure a stunning purple landscape across the moors every autumn, but to provide a habitat for some of the country's most threatened birds.

About one in seven of the UK's bird species, 46 in all, need heather moorland for feeding or breeding, including ten of the 36 species on the red list of greatest conservation concern. Another 21 species are on the amber list.

"There are all these birds, particularly waders, which are under pressure, and so, if you create a wetland, they are so pleased they find it and they move in and hopefully nest there and bring up their young," Sir Anthony says.

"But a lot of wetlands have been drained and the fields reclaimed and ploughed out and put down to grass. A huge amount of stock is put in, which never allows the birds a chance to settle, and they just gradually dwindle, they fail to breed that year and then just fade away.

"That has happened in a tremendous lot of places, although in the North-East we have still got the moors and the rough pasture land."

One of the biggest culprits in wiping out heather moorland has been intensive farming, with the moors turned into meadows for the benefit of livestock, but Sir Anthony is keen not to condemn the farmers themselves, even though their destruction may be irreversible.

"You can convert heather moorland into a meadow as easy as pie just by farming it, but the heather will never come back once the seed and the root stock has gone. It is completely overwhelmed by grass.

"The moorland has taken a real bashing. In the 1960s and 1970s the number of sheep on the uplands went up by several million, encouraged by the subsidy system, and that had an absolutely devastating effect on the quality of the moors and, therefore, its wildlife.

"But I don't want to knock farmers at all. They're just trying to make money and you can't blame them. We have got to change the subsidy system, to tip it away from intensive farming and allow them to be able to farm in a more wildlife-friendly way and make money out of it."

And it is not just farming which has put the moorlands' future under threat. Non-native trees, such as sitka spruce, have taken over some of the land at the heather's expense and the inexorable spread of bracken has also taken its toll.

But the efforts of groups, including the Moorland Association, are now starting to make a difference, although Sir Anthony is the first to acknowledge there is still some way to go.

"What we need is management of the moors and the ability to control the numbers of sheep and cattle, that is absolutely vital, but I think things are definitely looking better."