Happy Ney Year Everyone and I hope you’ve all had a jolly Christmas
I’m a brand spanking new addition to the Exe Estuaries team coming from a year’s stint at Coombes Valley reserves which is ancient oak woodland in Staffordshire, and am looking forward to working on the very different habitats and species here at Exe Estuaries. I am a Devonshire boy though, originating from the bright lights of Bideford, and am glad to get back to my home county after many years away.
I have to say (because Pete made me) I’m very pleased to be here and have been given a very warm welcome by the team. Tom has been extremely helpful in showing me the ropes and putting up with a stream of my questions (where does the .... go Tom? Why’s that then Tom? What’s that bird a mile away over there Tom?). Having arrived on Monday it seemed the whole reserve was underwater after some good old Christmas flooding and that wellies will be a permanent feature!
A morning of induction on Tuesday was followed by an afternoon spent carrying out an arable bird count on the fields in Powderham, where I got to see my first ever Cirl Bunting and assuredly not my last! I don’t know if any of you have noticed a reduced number of finches and the like frequenting your feeders but bird numbers on the arable fields were quite low, seemingly due to the unseasonably mild weather we’ve been having so far this winter.
Wednesday began with me and Tom giving Sammy a hand removing decorations from the hide at Bowling Green Marsh, officially ending Christmas.....until next year. Next it was down to some good old fashioned warden work, grabbing a shovel and getting covered in smelly estuary mud desilting the outlet pipe into the Exe in order to reduce flood water from Bowling Green Marsh. Then the big news of the week.....we started using the new reserve truck, god help the first person to scratch it!
It was a pleasure to meet a lovely hard working bunch of volunteers on Thursday as Tom led a work party removing scrub at Powderham, this was to conserve a grassy headland to the fields and enabling the creation of willow stakes for use in hedge laying that work will be carried out by the work party over the next few weeks. After some weeks of laziness including Christmas feasting, a week getting back to the daily grind and a day wielding a brushcutter, raking and what not has almost finished me off; I only just have enough energy to write this blog.
All in all this first week has been brilliant, the reserve is very beautiful and alive with wildlife and the numbers of teal and widgeon are baffling. There have been reports of an American Widgeon lurking amongst the flocks of the European variety at Bowling Green Marsh and a Cattle Egret has been seen over the Christmas period. I have made it my mission to spot one of these; I shall let you know how I get on...........
Ryan Woodcock