Hello to all Ham Wall blog readers! A quick introduction – I’m Ali Blaney, the 'new' warden at RSPB Ham Wall, although I’ve been in post for over five months now and those months have flown by. Prior to being at Ham Wall I’ve worked with the RSPB at Old Moor in Yorkshire and Lakenheath Fen in Suffolk, both amazing reedbed and wet grassland sites with fantastic wildlife (and lovely people!). I'm very happy to now be part of the team here at Ham Wall.
Steve Couch, your usual blogger, is on leave this week so I’m filling in with a slightly different blog while he’s away. While Steve will continue to update you weekly with the latest sightings information, I’m aiming to provide you with a monthly update on the reserve management and survey work that the staff and volunteers undertake. You’ll know what’s going on, why we’re doing certain things and what all the new things are popping up in different areas.
Education shelter
This was constructed in the Mini-marshes area near the car park in May and is primarily for the use of school groups when they are visiting us. When it’s not being used for the education trips it is open for all and provides some useful shelter from rain or sun.
Staff and volunteers installed the decking and ramp and refreshed the path down to the dipping platform. Thursday volunteers Reg and Garry started work on the storage benches inside the shelter yesterday, which school groups and the team can use.
A pair of swallows built a nest inside the shelter pretty much as soon as the scaffolding came down which is great for them and great for us all to have them so close. The chicks successfully fledged a week or so ago!
Wildlife GardenYou may have noticed some developments between the Welcome Building and the toilet block, transforming the area from a rather large puddle into a much more interesting space wildlife and for us. This is still in progress but the work done by the team has already improved that space. The raised beds have been constructed and the screens are in place but there is work still to be done, not least the planting up itself. The main planting will take place in autumn so it might look a bit bare for a while but we’ve got plenty of other things to do in that space to make our wildlife garden look more like a garden.
Eel passOur old eel pass has been replaced with a new one, thanks to a great bit of partnership working with a number of organisations and industry – for more info on that see the article by the Sustainable Eel Group. Our old one did the job but was nearing the end of its life and was a fairly steep climb for the eels to get into the reserve easily. The new one has been buried to make it that much easier for eels to get in and colonise the reserve before migrating back to the sea as adults. For those who haven’t spotted it, you’ll see it to your left as you go over the humped bridge on the main path through the reserve, just up from the car park end.
Reed managementYou’ve probably noticed that the vegetation has grown somewhat over the summer! We’ve now entered the time of year when reedbed management work starts. The first task was to cut the reed in front of Tor View Hide and open up that view again. That was done on a very wet Wednesday a couple of weeks ago, as Steve mentioned in his blog last Friday.
At the same time we started work on a larger scale in front of the first viewing platform, cutting the vegetation on the ends of the six islands in that compartment. The island ends have an annual summer cut – this suppresses reed growth and allows other more fen-like plants to grow such as water mint and purple and yellow loosestrife. When we bring the water levels back up this will leave a great splashy feeding area for the birds and, because it’s nice and open, visitors can see in and appreciate the spectacle!
Every year we cut one of the islands in its entirety, over an eight year rotation. This resets the habitat, stopping succession and drying out and creates a more varied vegetation structure across the compartment as a whole. This year is the turn of the island in the North West corner (far left if you’re looking from the viewing platform). We’ll cut this island last as it involves cutting more established reed.
To cut these islands we have to construct large floating pontoons and anchor them securely at either end. This is a very special pontoon - we drive our large Softrak machine over it to get onto the islands. When one island is complete, we up anchors and punt the pontoon over to the next one, adding or removing rows if we need to lengthen or shorten the bridge. This procedure is all new to me but the volunteers here are pros at this and it’s quite a slick operation!
Wednesday volunteers Stuart, Alan, Pete and Tom punting across Looks Low: Steve Hughes
Once onto the island, the Softrak cuts the vegetation, sucks it up and shoots it out backwards into a bin on the back. Once full, it is then driven off the island and piled in another area. During the winter months these piles are collected up and eventually get turned into compost, so very little goes to waste. Years ago all of the cut material was burned, so it’s really great that the machinery we have now allows us to cut and collect for compost.
However, the Softrak can only get so close to the edge of the island before we risk tipping an expensive piece of kit (and a precious staff member!) into very deep (2m) water, so the edges get cut with brushcutters afterwards. We ferry the team and kit onto the islands by boat, then cut and burn the remaining vegetation. We try to avoid burning as much as possible but if we didn’t burn we’d have to somehow remove this extra material from the island by boat and then trailer and this just isn’t feasible. Nor can we leave the piled material on the islands – it takes too long to break down and as it’s cut every year, we’d quickly end up with islands full of piled reed and little else.
So while it might cause temporary disturbance in certain areas, this work is so important to keep the reedbeds great for the wildlife and for the visitors. Great white egrets, grey herons and the glossy ibis are already showing really well in the half we’ve completed so far. On the days that we’re due to cause any disturbance we’re making sure the news gets out – via twitter, the staff and volunteers in the welcome building and the new sightings board outside. That way you can plan to avoid certain areas if needs be, or alternatively come and watch the work taking place! One of the benefits of a reserve the size of Ham Wall is that even if we are causing slight disturbance in one area there is plenty of the reserve left undisturbed.
And finally....Last but not least, it wouldn’t be Friday without at least a couple of sightings from the past week!
Kingfisher sightings around Waltons East have been good. John Crispin sent in this photo of a bird he’s seen actively fishing in that area - thanks John! The red on the lower mandible indicates this bird is a female and John says that although not visible in the photo, the bird had a white tip to its beak, indicating a juvenile. The white tip will disappear next season.
John also photographed a swift that appears to have a bulging throat. The area is used to store any insects caught by the bird and when breeding this is the method used to take a ‘bolas’ of insects back to the offspring in the nest. The second photo shows an apparent normal throat area. Thanks for the photos and the info John!
In other sightings news, two hobbys were seen down the Eastern end of the reserve over Emerys on Sunday and a willow warbler was heard singing. Also heard calling were reed and sedge warblers, not yet on their migration back to Africa. A coal tit was seen from the railpath adjacent to Street Heath. Little grebe are showing well in Waltons and a tufted duck family with five young are also in that area.
When the sun comes out, which it has done at times this week, the butterflies are great to spot on the hemp agrimony around the reserve - look out for the pink flowers. Gate keeper, red admiral, green-veined white, meadow brown and peacock have all been recorded this week.
I've run out of time so that's it I'm afraid - a rather brief sightings update this week for which I can only apologise but normal service on that front will resume next Friday. I'll return in September to provide the next reserve team update, I hope you enjoyed the first one!