Last week I had some time off the reserve to attend my sister’s wedding. Not only was this a great celebratory day, but also an aptly timed opportunity for me to update the family on my venture into residential volunteering.
It turns out I had rather a lot to say on the matter. Perhaps I should have stopped when I saw people’s eyes rolling into the back of their heads and, with hindsight, my introduction to the groom’s cousin didn’t need to turn into an hour long debate on the virtues of time spent amongst nature! Still the beers (and champagne and ouzo) were flowing and it is easy to get carried away with trying to right the (perceived) ills of the world. Except, and this is perhaps a bit dramatic, but that is what I happen to think charities such as the RSPB, and the staff and volunteers, are in fact attempting to do on a daily basis.
The RSPB strap line is: ‘Giving nature a home’. I thought I had a pretty good understanding of what this meant prior to arriving here at Exe Estuary, but I am finding that my appreciation for what it means is deepening on a daily basis. When I tell family and friends that I am volunteering for the RSPB there is inevitably a conversation about whether I have seen any good birds recently. The answer to that question is invariably ‘Yes’, but once that discussion has taken place I then wax lyrical about everything else that we do and that is when a rather obvious fact hit me: the birds are an indicator of the overall health of the habitat and the wildlife within it.
Many moons ago, I wrote a dissertation for my degree that involved me standing in rivers with a net trying to catch a representative sample of the insects and other invertebrates which lived in the mud and silt. Through analysis of the species present I was (theoretically at least) able to make some assessments over the quality of the water. Now I did this with freshwater invertebrates, but as I am beginning to realise (I’m not the quickest of cats), all wildlife within a habitat is connected and therefore the diversity of birds on the Exe Estuary reserves give us a good idea about the state of the rest of wildlife there.
Now I am no expert, and this is in no way a scientific assessment, but my fellow volunteer and housemate Laura has been keeping a list of birds we have seen on the reserves and around the area and, in the space of one month, she has tallied over 75 different species. Ipso facto, these birds would not be here if their exacting dietary requirements were not met and the landscape and vegetation was not conducive for their nesting, roosting and general survival strategies.
So, now when people ask me about what is involved in volunteering and working with the RSPB and what the organisation does, I think I can pretty much sum it up as: we are working to make sure that all wildlife has the best chance to flourish by taking a holistic view of the habitat and environment to perpetuate the benefits for everything within it, including ourselves. And from that point, when explaining all this to my weary and by now bleary eyed relatives, I can conclude that I am, along with all staff, volunteers and members of the RSPB, in fact saving the world, one piece at a time, for all of us!
So, after that somewhat verbose introduction, I can now tell you how we have been saving the world at Exe Estuary this week. It has been a short week due to the public holiday on Monday, but nature doesn’t stop and with Andrew on holiday this week we have been a man down and kept busy. What follows are some of my highlights.
On Tuesday, Laura and I spent the morning monitoring the lapwing chicks on the Powderham and Exminster Marsh sites. The length of the grass on the Exminster side is making the monitoring difficult at the moment, but there has been relatively little nesting activity there this season. However, over on Powderham we managed to spot 16 lapwing chicks, some of whom are beginning to stretch their wings and show some early signs of fledging.
We have also let some cattle back into the lapwing field this week to graze some of the grass down on Powderham. Now that the chicks are pretty nimble on their feet there is less of a concern about trampling and the RSPB’s Regional Ecologist, who spent Wednesday with Tom and Peter reviewing the Exe Estuary reserves, posited a theory that the dung from the cows attracts flies and beetles that could enrich the food source available to the juvenile lapwing. We need to give them all the help we can as on Thursday we thought we saw a crow carrying off something which looked suspiciously like a lapwing chick. The adult lapwings were certainly agitated and mobbing the cunning corvid who unfortunately is unrestricted by our predator fences. Friday’s count may well tell us more.
There is also a bit of a mystery on the Powderham marsh as we seem to have gained some Yellow Rattle (also called Cockscomb). This is a yellow flowering plant that is not normally found on our meadows because it is an annual plant that needs to flower and seed in order to propagate and grazers like our cows normally munch this down before the reproductive cycle can establish itself. While it may not last long now that the cows are back, it is an interesting conundrum and a welcome presence.
On Wednesday Laura and I were joined by Brandon, who has been helping Tom and the team on Wednesdays for just over a month now. We started off at Matford Marsh, which is a small reserve just down near the Countess Weir Bridge. I really like it round there as it is a nice compact site that allows you to survey almost all of it from any of the path’s vantage points. After cleaning down all the information signs and carrying out some strimming and trimming of overgrowing vegetation we then headed back to Exminster Marsh to carry out a butterfly survey and an impromptu dragonfly hunt for the Scarce Chaser. After getting lost amongst the myriad of ditches and discovering, almost at the cost of Laura’s wellies, that we couldn’t ford them, we finally found what we were looking for. The clue is in the name, but the Scarce Chaser is scarce in the UK. According to the British Dragonfly Society, the species is therefore listed in the British Red Data Book on Insects as category 3 (would you believe, defined as scarce). It is also flighty and we didn’t manage to get a picture, but we will persist and see what we can do for future blogs. Anyway, the presence of the Scarce Chaser is actually a little bit of a bonus as although it has been found on the site before, it tends to suffer when water levels are changing too much or there is pollution or eutrophication (an over abundance of nutrients in the water that can lead to algal blooms) of water ways (source: http://www.british-dragonflies.org.uk/species/scarce-chaser). Its ongoing presence therefore helps validate some of the water level management of the site and provides an indicator to the water quality.
Alas, not a Scarce Chaser, but a picture of a Broad Bodied Chaser (female) taken while on our butterfly survey (so annoyingly didn’t count in the dragonfly survey!!)
Thursday is always a sociable day as we are joined by the working party volunteers. This week it was Steve and Dennis and the morning tea break was enhanced by Dennis providing the jaffa cakes. There was some talk about how previous residential volunteers had baked cakes for the Thursday working party. I don’t know if this was a hint, but we recently had a health and safety assessment and I’m fairly certain that they would have a concern about me providing anything for human consumption without a risk assessment. Sorry guys!! Anyway, we had a great day putting up a palisade fence. There is something incredibly satisfying about working on things that are immediately tangible and learning new skills as you go. Who would have thought so much pleasure could be found in digging a neat hole for a fence post!
Anyway, that is all folks. Hope you have a good weekend.
Phill