This Thursday we split up the volunteer team into two groups and with Katherine and Emma tied up on a training course I joined the volunteers to help out. With the weather feeling decidedly autumnal it was time to change over all the seasonal interpretation panels so Darren and Nigel got cracking with that job.
Phil, Rob, Roger and I headed down to Mere Hide to cut back the vegetation along the boardwalk. With Phil strimming down one side and me coming back in the opposite direction on the other side we soon had the route looking open and tidy again. We were also treated to an overflight by 8 cranes who were circling westwards over high Joist Fen North. Whilst Rob and Roger cleared up our mess, Phil and I swept out the hide, cut some of the reeds in front of the Hide and found and re-installed the second kingfisher post. As we were packing up for lunch the cranes came back over us again, still flying high but heading north east this time.
The boardwalk looking back from the hide - Dave Rogers
Next to the grit tray - Dave Rogers
Meanwhile Darren and Nigel had finished the sign replacement, had fixed a damaged board on the decking at the visitor centre and had done some clearing up on the Brandon Fen trail.
After lunch most of us were out again with the brush-cutters and pitchforks, this time cutting the vegetation on the Fen Pools. With Phil and myself cutting, Nigel, Rob and Roger cleared up behind us. By 3 o'clock we had the first pool finished.
The finished fen pool - Dave Rogers
I thought I would say a few words about up coming work. Autumn and winter is they key time for the main habitat management work we do at Lakenheath Fen. We have a number of projects planned for this winter. Some are things we do each year like removing some of the willow trees that have grown up in the reedbed. We also have a number of one off projects intended for this year. For the first of these Katherine and Emma have been preparing for the arrival of a tracked excavator by moving water around the reserve. In particular they have been lowering the water level in New Fen North in anticipation of the digger arriving in the second half of November to cut a large section of that reedbed. Why do we want to cut the reed in New Fen? Well reedbeds over time tend to dry out. Each year reeds grow up then die back so over time there is a build up of dead reed stems and leaves, raising the ground level. If you allow willows to colonise reedbeds become woodlands . Drying out and a lack of management of reedbeds nearly lead to the extinction of bittern as a breeding bird in the UK in the mid 1990s. So if we want to retain our key reedbed species then we need to re-set the clock as it were, this will involve cutting the reed and burning up the cut material. We will then graze the reedbed with cattle for a couple of years which will reduce the reed to smaller clumps and create a more open habitat. After two or three years of summer grazing we will raise then water levels back to their original levels and allow the reedbed to grow out again.
We have already undertaken this kind of work on a section of reed west of the Joist Fen viewpoint, which was then the oldest reedbed on the reserve. This work is now complete and New Fen North is the next oldest block of reed. In this way, rejuvenating sections of reedbed around the site on a rotation, we will get a mosaic of reed areas of different ages which suit different species. What will this mean for visitors well a different view at New Fen North. Initially less reed, and lower water levels in the late spring and summer as we will follow up the cutting with grazing with cattle. Hopefully it will mean a different wildlife spectacle too. There were certainly lots of duck, waders, egrets and the cranes using the area we managed like this last year. So no promises but it should be exciting to see what we get!
We hope to see you soon.
Dave
Site Manager
David Rogers Senior Site Manager - Lakenheath Fen