Marazion Marsh

 

 

Wednesday 28 November 2018

3pm till dusk

Price: £5 per person (children free)

 

 

Join the RSPB Warden during the week to watch this wonderful spectacle as the Starlings head home to roost on the Marsh. Learn to spot and identify other birds and wildlife living on Marazion Marsh home at this time of year.

 

Warm clothing is essential. Bring binoculars if you have them.

 

 

Booking essential through…

Staff, volunteers and friends of Cornwall Reserves (including Zennor WI and Cornwall Beach Rangers) put their best foot forward and braved truly atrocious weather on Valentine’s Day to show their support for the Climate Coalition’s ‘Show the Love’ campaign. Armed with wet weather gear, cardboard banners and sporting handmade green heart badges the team took to Marazion beach for a photo opportunity and a chance to have…

#ShowTheLove

Do you care about the environment? Are you passionate about protecting the people, places and things you love from Climate Change? Do you believe Climate Change is an issue which can no longer be ignored?

 

Then join us to show your support for the Climate Coalition’s ‘Show the Love’ campaign. People all over the UK are making, wearing and sharing greenhearts to raise awareness & highlight the issue via…

 It's a fact! The RSPB wouldn't be able to achieve all it does without its fantastic volunteers.....People just like you.

 

Right now Cornwall Reserves need volunteers in these areas. If you think you might be interested and would like to have a chat, please ring 01736 360624 or email jane.comer@rspb.org.uk.

Marvellous Mechanical Beastie!

If you go down to the Marsh today you’re sure of a big surprise! Fans of large agricultural vehicles will get a kick out of seeing the magnificent Truxor Harvester carrying out our annual reed bed maintenance at Marazion Marsh. John Watts from Pembrokeshire based company Aquaclear Water Management will be onsite reed cutting with this impressive beast. The Truxor Harvester is a large amphibious…

We are RSPB volunteers

It’s a fact—the RSPB wouldn’t achieve all that it does without its fantastic volunteers. People just like you.

 

Can you help our small reserves team do more for nature? We need someone to help clean our office in Penzance. If you can spare 2 hours a fortnight to help with housekeeping duties at the Reserves Office we’d love to hear from you.

 

Contact us on 01736 360624…

Locals to Marazion Marsh may have noticed strange goings on at the reserve during January. Our annual reed bed management has been taking place courtesy of our Warden Jenny Parker, our team of dedicated volunteers, John Watts from Wales-based contractor ‘Aquaclear’ and his amazing Truxor aquatic reed cutter.

This magnificent beast delicately cuts the reed bed and clears water channels within the marsh freeing…

A round-up of the week's sightings over the marsh:

• Perhaps the week's highlight was the juvenile marsh harrier that was seen on two consecutive days over different areas.  We don't expect it to stay, but would love to hear about or see any further sightings
• Confirmation that there are two bittern in the marsh, up until now, sightings had been limited to one, so this was exciting news
• Nesting grey heron…

When the week started I had no idea it would herald my 15 minutes of fame. It was with some surprise that I therefore found myself stood in front of a television camera with a reporter calibrating it for the dulcet stereo phonics of my voice.  Now, when you are thrust in the spotlight kicking and screaming like a banshee, you hope that you will at least have an exciting and cool message to broadcast to the expectant public…

If you have lost your mobile phone on the reserve, please contact the RSPB Cornwall Reserves office on 01736 360624

We are currently holding the phone, but will be passing it onto Cambourne Police Lost & Found within the next few days

I had the pleasure of meeting this amazing man this weekend on our nature reserve, Gary Prescott aka the Biking Birder.  Gary has been cycling across the south visiting all the RSPB nature reserves and will continue his journey all over the UK until he has visited every RSPB nature reserve.  I have to say I was a little jealous that he will get to see the most incredible wildlife on his travels having myself only visited…

The eagle eyed visitor to Marazion Marsh will have spotted that the Warden and volunteers started cutting reeds next to Longrock Pool yesterday.

We cut the reeds in a patchwork providing old and new reed for nature.  This area was cut 5 years ago, since then the leaf litter has been building up preventing water from flooding this area and starting to dry out.  To reverse this process we cut and remove the reeds but…

If you have a garden or an allotment and you would like some mulch please contact us.  The amphibious reed cutter spent a week cutting reed from the ditches across the marsh and now we need to remove the cuttings from the floodplain.  To do this volunteers rake the reed into stacks, which are left to dry before they are burnt but we would prefer the reed to be used by you.  We can not deliver but if you want to collect some…

We had spectacular views of the starling roost on Wednesday evening.  The evening was bright with hardly a breath of wind and so we stood in the viewing lay-by on the seafront and waited.  By 16:30 the number of starlings on the overhead power cables near Marazion town were massing.  Then flock after flock gently breezed in over the marsh from the west and the north forming a large super flock high above the tree line.  

…

As happens almost every year, the reedbeds and willows at Marazion Marsh play host to large flocks of Starlings overnight from the end of October to December. Numbers have slowly been building and on 31^st October we estimated the roost held approximately 6,000 individuals. On calm, clear evenings their aerial displays, “murmurations” are quite a feature here and good views can be obtained from anywhere along the seafront…

The volunteers have made a great start on the winter habitat work.  Last Tuesday, we entered Longrock Pool by boat and cleared the edge of the reedbed to create loathing platforms for the birds.  Volunteers also made a good progress removing the willow that had grown back since 2008/09.  You will see us continue to clear the willow in this area for several weeks then we will cut an area of reed as part of our ongoing management…

On 14^th October, local birder Dave Parker discovered a very grey looking Snipe and several of us tried to get to grips with the bird to see if it could be a North American Wilson’s Snipe. This species has only been recorded from the Isles of Scilly in the UK so if this is one, it would not only be the first for mainland Cornwall but the first mainland record for the UK as well. Unfortunately, we failed to see the (very…

September has been a great month for birds at the marsh with a Hobby around for most of the time and a North American Pectoral Sandpiper for 11 days 5^th-15^th. Spotted Crakes have once again been seen (after a blank year last year) with 1-2 between 8^th-29^th Sept and they could still be here at the time of writing, 1^st October. A pity the same couldn’t be said for the Glossy Ibis which pitched in on Sunday, 28^t…

Our annual ringing programme in the hope of trapping an Aquatic warbler has started. This species is so rare these days, "globally endangered" even, that last year only one was trapped in the UK - near Lands End last autumn. It used to be a regular August/September visitor to Marazion which for some reason has always been one of the top sites in the UK for this declining species. Last year, however, we failed to catch…

This time last year we were awash with blooming ragwort, attracting hundreds of bees and butterflies to feed on the sweet nectar.  That is why ragwort has been a welcomed asset to the nature reserve in the last couple of years but as the ragwort plants became more numerous the risk of them spreading to neighbouring farmland was increasing so we had to start to control the plant by pulling it up by the roots.  This year…

On 22nd May a Purple Heron arrived on the marsh and delighted observers by standing at the back of Longrock Pool on the edge of the reedbed in full view as it proceeded to catch eels. This is our tenth PH here since the first in 1997 but they are becoming more frequent these days and actually nested for the first time in the UK just a couple of years ago. Still present the following day, it again showed well but since…