Mid-March Update

Greetings from the Exe Estuary!

We’ve been busy again this week, finishing the hedging behind Tobys on Powderham reserve, with the help of Chris our Monday day volunteer. We helped out the Aylesbeare team in creating habitat for butterflies in woodland, something a bit different for us. We finished, for this season at least, removing sycamore trees from Bowling Green Marsh. Whilst there we also painted the ceiling of the new section of the hide and varnished the lovely artwork on the wall, ensuring that it’ll last! We removed some unnecessary post and wire fencing along a ditch on Powderham and replaced it with a post and rail at the end, see photo below. This will help open the area up for future incoming waders whilst still providing a barrier for wondering cattle during the upcoming grazing season.

Around the reserve changes are starting to occur. The Black Tailed Godwit is beginning to adopt its summer plumage, changing from drab grey to a more colourful reddish brown. The Lapwing are starting to settle down on the fields within the predator fence zone. I saw one solitary male tumble dive last week, the male Lapwing perform aerial acrobatics as part of their mating displays. However there have been reports of many more beginning to show off for the ladies! You may hear the distinctive high pitch calls when out and about. There is a good view of this part of the marshes from the viewpoint at the end of the permissive path on Powderham. You can also get a view from the discovery area along turf path, around half way down amongst the reeds there is a wooden viewing screen.

Black Tailed Godwit Winter plumage (Upper image) Summer plumage (Lower image) (Images courtesy of Wikipedia)

Whilst at Powderham have a look out for Cirl Buntings, I have seen them sharing the bird feeders with Reed Buntings, but they can also be seen darting along the internal hedgerows. See the Labrador Bay Blog for more on Cirl’s. There are also Tits, Warblers, Chaffinches, Buntings and more around these parts. The bird feeders are used to provide a source of winter feed for these species, when their preferred invertebrate prey is harder to come across. You can still help out many species too by hanging bird feeders in your garden, you might be surprised what turns up.

(Male Cirl Bunting)

Andrew