Good morning from the Exe Estuary! My name is Justine, but please call me Jay.
I can’t believe my second week here as the new residential volunteer here is coming to a close, and boy, doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun.
The absolute highlight of my time with the team so far has been seeing my very first Grass snake. On the reserve you can find corrugated iron sheets on the floor (there’s one near the Discovery Area if you haven’t come across any yet), and the reptiles just love to use these to warm up in the morning. If you’re quiet, you can lift up a corner and hopefully get a peek of a snake, one of the UK’s six reptile species, as I fortunately did on Tuesday. You can even lay down material in your own garden at home to provide a cosy spot for these cold-blooded animals to warm up and get going first thing.
Elsewhere on the reserve, Laura and I walked over to the Powderham viewing platform for what we expected to be one of the last Lapwing surveys of the season, as most of the chicks had fledged. However, what we didn’t expect was to see three new fluffy little chicks bumbling about! They are very late in the season to be hatching, but Lapwing can sometimes have a second brood if their first one has failed, perhaps from predation or competition. I’m incredibly excited to follow their progress, as since I have joined the team here I have heard a lot about the fun of watching these little bundles grow at enormous rates into young adults. If you take a pair of binoculars up to the Powderham platform, look closely along the waterline of the ditches, where you will be able to see these tiny grey hatchlings with their mother close by for the next few weeks. Hopefully, we can all witness their first flight attempts in the safety of the reserve (complete with crash landings!), before they finally get the hang of their wings and fledge.
Watching the Lapwing chicks feeding along the muddy banks is a good reminder of why the water levels here on the Exe Estuary reserve are monitored so closely. By keeping a close eye on how much water is in the ditches, we can ensure that there is enough soft mud for these new birds to be able to forage on the invertebrates that like it there.
Much of the rest of my week here has been getting the hang of a hammer, mending fences to keep the grazing cows away from the water pipes and gates that connect the ditches. Once you’ve hit your knuckle with the hammer, you don’t make that mistake twice! I’ve learnt an incredible amount in the past week or so, and the nails are going in a bit straighter already. I can’t wait to see what the next six months will bring, and hopefully to see you about the reserve - you won’t miss me, I’ll still be the one surrounded by bent nails!
Bye for now,
Jay