Cast your minds back to June and you’ll remember the RSPB held the Big Wild Sleepout – a national camping event urging everyone to spend the night in nature’s home to raise money for wildlife. Here at Lakenheath Fen our Big Wild Sleepout lasted for two days and nights, with all sorts of activities going on. We also held a raffle, with the fantastic prize of a brand new four-man tent, kindly donated by Blacks. We can finally announce that the winner was.......Mary Grimmer, from King's Lynn! The family came to collect the tent last weekend and said "We're looking forward to camping again at Lakenheath - Thomas enjoyed moth trapping last time and seeing garden tiger and poplar hawk moths. Daniel will be coming next time too". Next time will no doubt be in the great new tent! Thanks to everyone who took part in the raffle, to raise more money for wildlife.
You've probably realised it has been a topsy-turvy couple of weeks here, with training courses aplenty. In between training we have been as busy as we can be around the reserve with the volunteers, while also trying to avoid getting sunstroke! Ragwort pulling is one of our main tasks at this time of year and we have spent mornings in various grazing marsh areas pulling up this plant. It is great for invertebrates, particularly cinnabar moths but toxic for grazing animals so we remove it from grazed areas. We still have a bit of ragwort to be pulled so thank you to our volunteers who have been helping us so far, it's not been a pleasant task in this heat but we couldn't do it without you!
Cinnabar moth on ragwort by Ali Blaney
Dave, Katherine and I have also been out with the quad bike and flail mower, keeping our visitor trails open. Last week I spent one lovely morning cutting the riverbank public footpath, all the way from Joist Fen viewpoint down to Botany Bay. It took quite a long time to get all the way down and back, ensuring a nice cut all the way but it does now look really good up there (even if I do say so myself!) and I had stunning views all the way out across the river and the reedbeds. Some of our visitors who venture down to Botany Bay have noticed that the stretch of footpath through that area is rather overgrown. This is unavoidable at this time of year unfortunately due to the presence of a certain caterpillar - the larvae of the marsh carpet moth, a nationally scarce species. The larval foodplant for this species is common meadow-rue and our best patch grows along the edge of the public footpath. We therefore have to wait until the caterpillars have made full use of the plant before we cut the footpath - we also have to attempt to count all the caterpillars before they disappear. This isn't an easy task, as you can see from the photo below they are very well camouflaged!
Marsh carpet moth larva by Ali Blaney
Katherine has been out counting and this years total is 99, slightly down on last year so we'll be looking into why this might be the case.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the rudd activity at Mere Hide (I bet you thought I'd forgotten!) Dave had reported seeing good 'bittern-sized' rudd as well as the smaller 'fry' swimming about quite clearly in front of and to the side of the hide. He recorded some footage which you can view by clicking this link: Mere Hide rudd action. Visitors are still seeing bitterns from Mere Hide and no wonder with all this food clearly visible!
The countdown begins.....
Finally, it is with mixed emotions that I'm announcing this to be my penultimate blog for RSPB Lakenheath Fen. I am soon to be moving out of the fens and back to the shires of Berks, Bucks and Oxon where I started my career in conservation. I'll be very sad to leave Lakenheath and everyone here but am moving back to family and friends. So I'll endeavour to make next weeks blog a good'un and aim for it to be a tribute to how amazing it is here at Lakenheath - for people and for wildlife!