We are being treated to some lovely sunshine at the moment and we have spent plemnty of time out on site enjoying it! We had a very successful volunteer Sunday at the weekend, with a good turn out of 15 people. The group have finished off the scrub burning around silt lagoon 7 – this job is now completed, so a big thank you too all involved in this, it will make a big difference to our reedbed creation work later on this year. Also, we planted out 48 trays of reed plugs on Phase 2. This works out at a whopping 3500 reed plugs – a brilliant effort! These extra plugs will do thgeir bit to help the ongoing reedbed development on Phase 2, which we hope will continue to make good progress in 2011.
Last week we were busy completing our woodland work for the winter. We have felled a few large sycamores along the central ride, opening up the canopy nicely to let in the light and creating some more brash piles. These brash piles are great little habitats, providing a home for a variety of creatures from fungi to insects to nesting birds such as robins, wrens and blackbirds. We have also cut four large poles from the felled sycamores to use as uprights to re-build the viewing screen – nice use of local materials there! There are now 9 new fish shelters ready to go out onto Phase 2 – another use of sycamore brash. Again, these are brilliant little habitats in which fish can congregate, shelter and breed – vital for the biodiversity of the developing reedbed.
And some wildlife news from the last week – we have confirmed that there are two cetti’s warblers on site, many thanks to volunteer Graham Gamage for his efforts in finding them! The two tree sparrows are still making good use of the Phase 1 feeders, as are siskin and brambling. There are at least two pairs of shelduck back on site, as well as three pairs of great crested grebes, looking stunning in their summer plumage. 3 little egrets have been seen on Phase 2. Of the winter visitors, there are still around 80 wigeon on Phase 2, along with a pair of goldeneye and a few teal. 26 whooper swans flew north east over the reserve on volunteer Sunday and the resident group of roe deer have been seen regularly, with 4 animals spotted on Phase 2 on Sunday.
Finally, it’s rather cold for moth trapping this week, but I did manage to spot a bumblebee yesterday in the processing plant and surely it won’t be long before the first butterfly makes an appearance!?