I arrived back from my holiday in a hot and dry Andalucia to find the reserve looking distinctly wetter than it was when I left! We have to balance the water levels here at all times of year – during the spring and summer months it’s the breeding birds that dictate how we manage the water but at this time of year we have to take into consideration any winter work that we need to carry out.
One area of the reserve where we need to keep water levels low for just a little while longer is the reedbed in which we are working on the new Mere Hide. While the hide itself has been constructed, we still need to build and install the boardwalk and it’ll be a lot easier for us to do this in the current shallow water. During the winter we also carry out a lot of willow removal in the reedbeds. While we do have a boat to assist us, most of this work is done in waders so again, the shallower the better. We can cut the willow stumps as low as possible and treat them more effectively. Finally, we also plan to do some reed cutting this year, which we did not manage last winter for numerous reasons. This will involve machinery working within the reedbed so we need to try and ensure that particular area remains as dry as possible.
So, what do we do with all the water that has appeared over the past few weeks? Using our many sluices around the reserve we can let water out of certain compartments and into others, let levels build up, drop or stay put. To a certain extent anyway! At the moment, we plan to do some willow removal in Norfolk and New Fen North reedbeds so Joist Fen North is currently set up to take in water whereas the other two are set so the levels cannot rise. Katherine and the volunteers spent last Thursday finishing off the reed cutting at Joist Fen viewpoint and it looks great, just ready for the water level to come up a bit and get some nice muddied areas at the back. They've also put in a couple of kingfisher perches so keep your eyes on those.
Photo credit: Ali Blaney – Joist Fen North viewpoint pool
There are some other areas of the reserve that we DO want more water in, such as the fen pools near the visitor centre. The vegetation in the pools has been cut and some water is coming in but we can still have more in these pools. Getting water into them when it's drier isn't easy but it's starting to look though like the ground is getting nicely saturated here and water is starting to hold. This all bodes well for the fen plant pools next spring hopefully!
Photo credit: Ali Blaney – Fen pools starting to hold water
Our scrapes in Brandon Fen are also looking better now with much more water in and some nice muddy edges. More strimming is planned here to open up the views and hopefully show some sneaky peaks at waders hunting for invertebrates.
After all the talk of water, I’ll end by putting a smile on everyone’s faces – I slipped gracefully but accidently into a deep, water-filled ditch on the outskirts of New Fen North reedbed yesterday morning – right up to my middle. Needless to say, despite my thigh waders, I got rather wet and spent the rest of the day in my spare trousers (my chainsaw trousers, which are rather warm for indoors) with a bag of sopping, smelly clothes under the desk in desperate need of a wash. I couldn't wait to get home and have a shower!