Assistant Warden John fills us in on his recent work and wildlife highlights:
The past two or three weeks have thrown some strange, unseasonable weather at us. A cool, windy start to the month left us asking "where has the summer gone?"; Burton Mere Wetlands even had to close one day due to high winds, and I definitely didn’t decide to write this blog to dodge another very heavy shower!
It has undoubtedly been a tough time for all the wildlife around the reserve; the focus of Dan's earlier blog, ‘Heron's above,’ our little egrets and cattle egrets nesting up in Marsh Covert have been blown around to say the least, but thankfully all look to have survived. Overall though the reserve didn’t suffer much wind damage and myself and volunteers quickly tidied up the worst of the fallen branches and leaves over a couple of days.
The weekend has seen a return to somewhat more typical weather for the time of year, even a mini-heatwave. This is great for butterflies, that I mention in my last blog, which have been a lot more active especially meadow brown, day-flying cinnabar moths, and large skippers emerging around the reserve while the odd wall can still be found around Burton Point. This fine weather has also been perfect for redshank surveys on the saltmarsh with the final surveys happening this week. My visit today found a good number of redshanks as well as non-breeding birds including great white egret.
Blue skies over Burton Marsh (Image: John Langley)
Not only have we had topsy-turvy weather to contend with, tidal parts of the reserve such as the Point of Ayr also have the ebb and flow of the tide to consider. Unseasonably high tides at the end of May had the potential to cause some damage to the little tern protection scheme. Upon arrival at the site I was relieved to see that although the tide had inundated the electrified pens the damage was minimal. Myself and a team of eager volunteers cleared debris from the fencing to prevent the electrical current short-circuiting, and pegging the bottom of the fencing to the sand. This sounds an easier job than it was as we have approximately 700m of fencing, and most of the pegs had been washed into the strand line!
Tidal damage at Point of Ayr (Image: John Langley)
Elsewhere on the reserve signs of summer are still visible with southern marsh orchids still lining the edge of the paths, often mixed in with bright yellow birds-foot trefoil attracting plenty of common blue butterflies. However the real highlight for me is the flowering of the bee orchids. These are mainly found towards the bunker hide on exposed ground, and when you see one you can fully understand where their name comes from; it looks just like a bee surrounded by 3 purple petals!
Southern marsh orchid and birds-foot trefoil (Image: John Langley)
Bee orchid (Image: John Langley)
Last weekend was also the monthly Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS), meaning a team of staff and volunteers would be monitoring the whole reserve - and beyond - to count the water birds that call the Dee Estuary home over the summer months. My count sector is the outer edge of Burton Marsh which requires a long walk out, but rewarded with the chance of seeing the marsh in the summer including saltmarsh plants such as scurvy grass and occasional early flowers of sea aster.
The reserve still has plenty of birds around at the moment with avocet, lapwing and redshank young still showing well in a variety of stages of development from newly hatched to almost fledged. This makes it a perfect time to visit the reserve to learn a little more about the appearance of these youngsters! Spoonbill, little egret, cattle egret and great white egret are still regularly seen around the site.