With the recent spell of mild weather we’ve been enjoying you wouldn’t really think it was November! Not that I’m complaining, it makes a nice change to be getting stuck in to the winter work programme without having to don about five layers of clothing before heading out...
Yesterday saw the work party heading down to Mere hide to cut back some of the reed surrounding the pool edge.
It’s one of our regular jobs and there are a few reasons behind doing it each year. We want to open up the views from the hide, which, with a bit of luck will encourage some of our more secretive reedbed residents to make an appearance. Cutting the reed back also helps prevent it from spreading too far into the water, becoming established and subsequently reducing the size of the pool.
The first part of the adventure was finding our way through the reeds in order to reach the pool edge; luckily for us Katherine found her way straight there (I’m sure I would have got us all a bit lost!) and we appeared exactly where we wanted to be, just opposite the hide.
Armed with brushcutters and forks we soon had the reed cut and cleared, leaving behind some lovely open areas:
The view from the hide (Emma Cuthbertson)
The hide from another perspective (Phil Hammond)
The view from the back of the pond (Phil Hammond)
Only a couple of days after cutting the vegetation outside the visitor centre, a bittern strolled along the cut edge putting on a great show for those watching – fingers crossed for a repeat performance at the hide.
After a well earned tea break, we moved further down the reserve to tackle some willow scrub along various ditch edges. This is one of our main jobs during the winter months and certainly feels like one of those never ending ones! Whilst a little bit of scrub in a reedbed is good – cetti’s warblers like it and marsh harriers will use it as a perching post – left to it’s own devices it can soon take over and we have less of a reedbed and more of a woodland!
This week we removed some of the willow in view from Joist Fen viewpoint, the bog oak (usually seen with a cormorant perched on top of it) now stands out much better minus it’s surrounding willows;
(Image - Emma Cuthbertson)
Throughout the winter we’ll be working our way through the reedbed areas, selectively taking out willows, so if you notice a few willows disappearing across the reserve you’ll now we’ve been nice and busy!