The benches that is....but more on those later!
This week has been a mixture of office work (never the popular choice as spring is springing outside!) and a good bit of survey work to cheer us up. Dave and I have finally finished the Annual Report, which summarises everything that happened at Lakenheath Fen in the financial year 2012/13. Let me tell you - a LOT happened! It covers not just habitat management but events, visitors, memberships and of course the success of our breeding birds as well as other information. It's been an interesting experience to be involved in writing up the summary of my first year here. We were busy! It also helps us to focus on the new year that has just begun and I can tell we're going to be just as manic, if not more so!
We started this week with an early Monday morning for most of us, as we carried out our second bird territory survey. I encountered many blackcaps along the way and was pleased to be able to identfy them by song before backing up my identification with a visual. All but one that is, who seemed to be doing a remarkable impression of a whitethroat. And I thought I only had to worry about telling blackcaps from garden warblers! Luckily, the bird showed himself so I was able to record correctly on my map. Otherwise, it seemed strangely quiet on Monday morning - perhaps it was too early even for the birds!
This morning we coaxed our volunteers in for 7.30am to help us with our first 'proper' bittern listen, after our attempt last week was thwarted by the strong winds and the 'fen blow' that was whipped up by them. David mentioned the experience in his blog last Friday. It's not something I'd encountered until the past month or so and it's quite a sight - standing at Joist Fen viewpoint looking south and seeing a huge brown cloud coming your way! Needless to say, after an hour or so of not being able to hear anything and getting rather gritty eyes, we called it a day. I'm pleased to say that todays attempt was much more successful - apparently the bittern at Joist Fen viewpoint wouldn't shut up! So far we definitely know we have three boomers, possibly as many as six. Unfortunately the wind hasn't completely died down so we struggled to pinpoint all the grunts and booms. Next week we'll shuffle ourselves around again and listen from different points to try and get a clearer picture. What I did hear though was my first cuckoo of the year which was very nice indeed. I also admired some ground ivy growing on the riverbank where I was sat (there are flowers about at last!) and discovered a pair of oystercatcher were feeding directly behind me on the washland. Although it was quite exposed to the wind on the riverbank, when the sun came out you could feel its strength and it felt very pleasant (at times!)
While we've all been very pleased to see some sunshine in the recent days, from a water level management point of view we could do with some rain. I know, we're never happy.... We've had the odd shower but nothing substantial and the strong winds have helped accelerate the evapotranspiration (long word for you there!) With the work that we were finishing off in Brandon Fen and the fen pools in the last couple of months we had to have low water levels and they haven't quite regained the level we want. Luckily, we've been able to open the tap from the river again to help us top things up, so you'll notice the new wet features in Brandon Fen getting wetter again and the dipping pond breathing a sigh of relief. The fen pools near the visitor centre will need a bit more help so we'll be getting a pump going from Brandon Fen into those pools sometime next week hopefully.
Now that the annual report is done, we'll hopefully have some more exciting reserve updates to follow as we can get on with some practical work. This will start nicely with our volunteers joining us again tomorrow for a work party day, when we'll be installing the new bench sculptures. I'll end with a couple of teasing shots of them in the workshop - the final coat is going on as I type! I'll put in more photos of them next week when they are ready to be sat / scrambled on.
Photo credit: Suzanne finishing off the dragonfly
Photo credit: Ali Blaney - Ssssnake bench waiting to escape the workshop!