All hands on deck!

Happy New Year to everyone who follows the Lakenheath Fen blog!  I hope you all had an enjoyable festive season.  This is my third day back at work in 2014 and we’ve got right back into the swing of it here at Lakenheath.

We hit the ground running on Thursday with our first volunteer work party of the year.  We were straight back down to the hide, cracking on with the boardwalk and what a lovely day for it!  We were so very lucky to end up with what seems like the only nice day weather-wise for quite a while.  In the sunshine, we split into different groups working on various sections.  The least favourite end of the working line, it has to be said, is the leading end where the posts are being driven into the ground and the frames attached. It’s hard work getting those posts in so thank you to everyone who has taken a turn – on this particular day it was Dave with volunteers Martin, Nigel and Mark.  The target for this team was to get the passing place sorted - an extra wide section for people, wheelchairs and pushchairs to pass each other as they come and go from the hide.  Their target was successfully completed, hooray!

Photo credit: Ali Blaney - the passing place successfully constructed

Further down the line volunteers Roger, Phil and Karen were in charge of nailing down the decking boards. This team works with great precision and accuracy and the snake of boards looks very professional.  Behind them were volunteers Tony, Robert and Jim, who were laying down the non-slip wire mesh and curbing in expert fashion.  

Photo credit: Ali Blaney - volunteers Jim, Robert and Tony adding the curb on top of the non-slip mesh

So while all hands were on deck, literally, where was I you might ask? Among other things I was busy with a brushcutter, working away on the pool edges opposite the hide.  We're opening up small scallops into the reed edge and small paths back into the reeds. These should provide extra opportunities to spot wildlife as mammals and birds use the raised, bare ground for feeding and cross over the pathways from reed patch to reed patch. This photo shows the work that has taken place directly opposite the hide so far, Dave was assisting me by shouting directions across the pool as to how the views were from the hide:

Photo credit: Ali Blaney - creating those wildlife windows in front of the hide

There is actually a ditch at the back of those strimmed pathways, which leads into the pool just to the right of the kingfisher perch in the photo. So the strimmed patch on the left is to create some raised, bare ground. The strimmed section on the right is a pathway stretching back to the ditch, which heads off toward the top right hand corner of the photo. It'll make more sense when you view it from the hide, I promise! Next week I'll be working on the scallops into the reed edge, mainly on the righthand pool but maybe also one to the left. Once we raise the waterlevels these may need some extra tweaking but we'll just have to wait and see. 

The hardworking teams were rewarded with the beautiful sunshine and ample supplies of biscuits. Roger, Karen and Phil also got good views of an inquisitive bearded tit very close to where they were working, seeing what all the rustling was about. Dave spotted a kingfisher flying across the righthand pool while he was assessing the strimming from the hide and also informed us that he saw another bittern from the hide just before Christmas. So we ended the day with tired, yet happy workers. We've got two more boardwalk work parties next week, fingers crossed the weather is just as kind!