Life on a nature reserve is often unpredictable. Weather, wildlife and human visitors can often throw up a few unexpected surprises. But there are some things that we can pretty much guarantee – and one of those is ensuring that our warden team get into the reedbed after the breeding season to crack on with essential habitat management.
Reed is an incredibly fast-growing plant, and if left unchecked will ultimately fill the pools and crowd out other plant biodiversity. Willow, Alder and other scrubby trees and bushes move in and soon our lovely wetland becomes a damp woodland. This is all very good for some species but not terribly helpful for the likes of Bitterns, Bearded Tits, Marsh Harriers, Otters or Eels!
So, we have to step in and clear large areas to stimulate new reed growth along with other important plant communities. This of course also provides ideal loafing and feeding areas for wintering wildfowl and waders. Which in turn, allows our visitors to get brilliant close-up views of birds from the hides! It’s an all-round winner.
Thankfully, the weather has been kind and once we had dropped water levels down in some areas, the warden staff and volunteers were able to get going in earnest - almost literally making hay while the sun shines!
So far, we have managed to do lots of work at Grisedale and Lilian’s pools, with Tim Jackson pool the next on the list. We have employed a Truxor to come in and do the really big stuff in the really wet areas. The Truxor is an amazing aquatic vehicle that can cut large areas of reedbed both above and below the water.
We will be hoping to get into some other areas in the coming weeks and we are monitoring and managing water levels across the reserve to make sure that we can access the parts of the reedbed that we need to. So, if you want to come and see dynamic conservation in action, keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter pages for updates on when we will be doing the work.
You can also tune into Countryfile on Sunday evening (BBC 1, 10 September) to see us talking about the habitat management work taking place here at Leighton Moss.
And I hope that next time you visit, you’ll be able to see the extent of our ongoing efforts as well as enjoying the many benefits that this intensive work delivers!
Jon
Photo by Mark Edwards