Back at the end of July, the Friday volunteer crew and I had a fabulous day out on Phase 2, where we were joined by our Regional Reserves Manager Nick Droy, for a spot of reed fencing. Young reed is very susceptible to grazing by birds - most notably coot and geese. As the young shoots only have small rhizomes (and consequently, small energy stores), they find it hard to recover from constant grazing pressure. To alleviate this, we fence off a lot of our young reed, to give it a chance to put on some good growth and importantly, increase the size of it's energy stores in it's rhizomes.
We couldn't have picked a better day for the job, with the sun shining and strangely for Langford - no wind! As we worked away in the beautiful weather, we were entertained by a marsh harrier, hobby's and a beautiful water ladybird on reed stems in the middle of the island - the first I've had on site this year.
By the end of the day, we had installed over 400 metres of fencing, protecting virtually the whole of the western island of Phase 2! An amazing effort and one which will hopefully see rewards next year with increased reed growth over the whole area - another step closer to our goal of creating one of the largest reedbeds in the East Midlands!
Many thanks to Nick for joining us for a very enjoyable and productive day!