This was what I thought to myself last Friday, when getting ready to do some strimming. I was walking toward the workshop when I saw the ‘mountains’ in the direction of Botany Bay. My poor brain didn’t think anything else of it until Katherine commented on the approaching storm....
Photo credit: Ali Blaney – Fenland ‘mountains’
Photo credit: Ali Blaney - the mountains creeping nearer
Oh well, it was Friday! The approaching storm was something to behold and we watched it move closer, with the thunder getting louder and lightning flashes more frequent. Everything else took cover, I thought I’d delay my strimming for a little while! Once the ‘mountains’ had passed over and the rain had died down a bit I was off cutting the trail around the fen pools near the visitor centre, which have some lovely plants in them attracting butterflies, dragonflies and other invertebrates (although not at that particular time!) Apparently even our visitor centre bittern flew into this area after I’d been strimming there last week - that would be an amazing close encounter if you were to happen upon that bird.
We’ve been strimming-mad the past few days, working around Brandon Fen ready for an exciting treasure hunt event this coming Sunday and also the Trial Wood trail. Our next focus will be the main track south of New Fen North as well as the reedbed bays there. We’ve also been continuing with our common ragwort pulling in the grazing marshes and have managed to tick two whole areas off the list so far with both the other areas underway – thanks to our hardworking volunteers! We’ll be back out pulling again Thursday morning and we’ll also be taking advantage of what looks like a few dry days to get some painting work done – we’ll let you know what’s wet, don’t worry!
Following on from last weeks blog, we’ve finished our count of marsh carpet moth larvae and we’ve seen a big improvement on last year which is exciting. It was a difficult job as some of the larvae were exceedingly small, although some were easier to spot. Here is a photo of one of the bigger ones, can you spot the larva?
Photo credit: Ali Blaney – marsh carpet moth larva on common meadow rue
Our total for this year came to 149, compared to only 48 last year – a pretty big increase I think you’ll agree. Botany Bay proved to be a good hotspot, with 95 larvae counted along the public footpath. New Fen South was also a much improved area and we’re confident this was due to us strimming these patches earlier in the year, to clear the hemlock and grasses that had crowded out the growth last year. The patches of common meadow rue were fantastic this year – I was slightly overwhelmed when I encountered my first patch as it was huge! Given the improvement in the common meadow rue growth I think we were expecting to find even more than the 29 larvae we counted, but as none were found in 2012 this is still an improvement and next year will hopefully be even better. We also strimmed the Botany Bay footpath at the end of last year so it’s likely this helped the common meadow rue compete against the other plants which had started to crowd it out a bit. Strimming doesn’t just benefit our visitor access you see!
It made me think of War of the Worlds - I was expecting to see something travelling down into the ground through the lightning! Of course, I then had the soundtrack stuck in my head all afternoon. And again now!