It has been really busy with work on the reserve since Christmas. If you have visited us recently you will have seen all the reed cutting we have done in New Fen North. This is part of the cycle of rejuvenation work we undertake over a 15 to 20 year period to keep the reedbeds in tip top condition for the range of wildlife they support. With the cutting completed the wardens Emma and Alan raised the water levels to the typical depth we have at this time of year by opening the sluice from the river. After a week of letting water in, New Fen north was full. The shallow flooding has already yielded a few good bittern sightings. Later in the spring we will lower the level and get grazing animals like the Dartmoor ponies back in to eat off some of the reed regrowth.
With the reed cutting finished our regular Thursday work parties have been fixing fences, re-thatching the New Fen viewpoint shelter and cutting willow scrub. Thank you to all our trusty volunteers for all their help with these jobs. We are also cleaning down and repainting some of the wooden signs around the reserve.
Last week Paul, our regular excavator driver, arrived with his machine to do a range of work for us. This started on Friday with a new sluice being installed down a the far end of the reserve. This is a continuation of work started last year to improve the movement of fish around the reserve. So Claire, Catherine, Alan and myself spent Friday dry mixing concrete and filling sand bags full of the stuff ready for the walls of the sluice. We manged to make a record 160 bags in a day which is about 4 tons of concrete. The photograph below shows the sluice in place and the concrete sandbag retaining walls being built up.
image credit: Dave Rogers
We still need to add another four or five courses of bags to finish the job so on Monday we will be back on the cement mixer to do another 100 to 120 bags.
Once Paul our digger driver has completed the sluice installation by removing the earth dams he will be moving back up the reserve to do some work nearer to the visitor centre. We have a number of jobs for him to do including installing the three wooden bridges, cleaning out some ditches and re-modelling the scrape in Brandon Fen. Constructing the bridges will involve some temporary path closures. All the viewpoints and hide will still be accessible but some sections of path will need to be closed whilst the work is being done. One bridge is going in between the West Wood and the viewpoint at Joist Fen and the other two near the visitor centre. Please ask in the visitor centre if you want additional information about how to get around on the reserve.
Finally we have been granted a felling licence from the Forestry Commission to do some additional thinning work in the West Wood to promote the alder trees. The faster growing poplar trees are shading out the alders so we will be cutting down some of the poplars to give the alders more light. Alders are a native tree characteristic of wet woodland and are particularly liked by some of our winter visitors like redpolls and siskins. This is part of a much longer term plan to make the woods more diverse and hopefully encourage species like nightingale to breed again on the reserve. We hope to start this work in March so plenty to keep those of us trained to use a chainsaw - Emma, Alan and myself busy.
On the reserve over the weekend there have been good sightings of the cranes. Both our breeding pairs are back now. Pair A have already chased off last year's youngsters but Little and Large are still flying around and feeding with their chick from last year. It won't be long however before they start thinking about nesting again and junior will be encouraged to make its own way in the world. February is probably the best month to see our cranes. They fly about regularly and the two breeding pairs will often challenge each other on the boundaries of their territories so the is often lots of bugling from the birds and the occasional dance off.
Do visit us soon and catch a view of the cranes and with spring hopefully now on its way we should have marsh harriers sky dancing and bitterns booming before long.
Dave Rogers - Site Manager
David Rogers Senior Site Manager - Lakenheath Fen