Nothing says it’s nearly Christmas like burning reed, and so, we have begun our annual reed cutting programme. It was one of the first jobs I was involved with when I started here last year, time certainly does fly by!
This year we are working on New Fen north, the section of reedbed closest to the visitor centre. Those of you who have visited us over the last few months will have noticed that the water levels at New Fen viewpoint are much lower than usual. Without dropping the water to its lowest levels we would never be able to access the areas of reed we want to cut.
Once again, we have contractors in using the same machine as last year, a 360 digger with a Bradshaw bucket. The bucket has reciprocating blades on it and is able to cut large sections of reed at a time – much quicker than we could ever manage with brushcutters.
Digger and Bradshaw bucket close up by Katherine Puttick
The cut material is heaped up by the digger and that’s where we come in...to burn it! It’s a job we never struggle to get volunteers for as everyone loves a good fire. It’s an especially nice job on a cold winters day, even though we do all go home with the distinctive aroma of smoke clinging to us!
Tending to the fires by Katherine Puttick
The aim of the work is to rejuvenate the reedbed, taking it right back to its early stages and allowing fresh reed to grow. A varied age structure is great within a reedbed as all its inhabitants have slightly different requirements; some like old reed, some new, some deep water and some the odd tree to perch in. With this in mind, we don’t cut the entire reedbed at once, only sections at a time to provide this range of structure.
So, over the next few weeks there will be some disturbance in New Fen whilst we carry out this work, as we’ll be working in there in the run up to Christmas and then again in the New Year.
It will look very different for a while, but it will all be worth it! The last section of reed we cut in this way proved to be very popular with wildlife. With the water level raised a little it soon attracted little egret, great white egret, lapwing, snipe and a variety of water fowl. As the photo below shows our cranes quite liked it too....
Cranes in the newly cut reedbed by Dave Rogers