In August I was lucky enough to spend the day with Paul, Suzanne and Neil Fuller, an Ecologist from English Nature, who was given a tour of the reserve. Neil was at Old Hall looking at the ecology of the reserve in order to assess our current SSSI status. It was fascinating to see the framework used to assess a Site of Special Scientific Interest and to see so many plants I hadn’t even heard of before or noticed for that matter. Needless to say I learnt a great deal that day and thankfully our SSSI status is secure for another few years at least.
Later on that week a personal battle of heat, fatigue, accompanied by my poor sense of direction and nine foot high reeds blocking the route markers, hampered what should have been a relatively straightforward bearded tit survey in the reedbed. The survey took over four hours and I was felled a few times by hidden anthills. Fortunately though, there was nobody mad enough to be in the middle of the reedbed at the time to see me splashing around like a hippo on heat. The rest of the day was nice and relaxing, brushcutting the viewing screens and pathways.
Right, remember what my friend RAF Rowely said “Pain is weakness leaving the body”
I carried out my first hydrology survey of the reserve with Suzanne, which was excellent. I was equipped with some brand spanking new waders that didn’t leak! I checked water levels and took measurements at set points. I also had a very high tech piece of kit that measured the salinity of the waterways and took a number of readings at various locations. The data was then collected and put on our database with about 15 years’ worth of similar data. Somebody at some point in time is going to have fun analysing all that information.
A typical scene - a Borrowdyke beginning to dry up in the grazing marsh.