Continuing the bonfire theme from my last blog, there's a smoky smell emanating from the office this afternoon. The reason? With no power this morning due to a planned power cut to allow tree felling around the powerlines on our entrance road, several of the visitor team joined the wardens to help with some habitat management work. Our tasks were to remove scrub from the edge of the reedbed at both Island Mere and Bittern Hide, and to burn the resultant brash. I was in the Bittern Hide team.
If you had visited Bittern Hide this morning, you'd have witnessed a rare event - I was getting my hands dirty and doing some proper physical work - a nice change form sitting at a desk using a computer or meeting visitors in reception. Our priority was to trim the alder and willow trees in front of the hide, before they grew high enough to start to obstruct views from the hide. While we did that, Dave, one of the wardens, used his chainsaw to fell a couple of willows at the edge of the reedbed.
The problem with trying to burn freshly cut wood is that it doesn't burn well at first, especially willow and alder. After several false attempts, Dave's fire-lighting experience got the fire roaring nicely, and it wasn't long before the brash was completely burnt. Being wet and leafy, it was a rather smoky fire at first, so apologies to anyone who encountered a wall of smoke hanging in the woods between Bittern Hide and Southbelt crossroads. Hopefully your consolation will be improved viewing from the hide, with no danger of branches obscuring the view for at least another year. Apologies too, for anyone who found the view from Island Mere Hide a little restricted by smoke too.
Despite the smoke, there was still plenty of wildlife to spot. A little egret twice landed in the pool while we working at Bittern Hide and we had great views of marsh harriers, greylag geese and lapwings flying over too. There were still lots of common darters on the wing too, including some mating pairs, taking advantage of the incredibly mild mid November weather. In fact, at times it felt like summer, as Paul and I also watched five late house martins hunting over the reedbed whilst we were on our lunchbreak, and a red admiral butterfly was also spotted later in the day.
While we took a coffee break mid morning I also found this gorgeous little insect. It's an acorn weevil. Look carefully and you can see that it's antennae turn up at right angles, almost like an old TV aerial (sorry, it's not a great picture). It just shows that it pays to keep your eyes peeled at all times.
Acorn weevil by Ian Barthorpe
Of course, there was plenty to see without needing to visit either of the reedbed hides. A very late ring ouzel was found in the sluice bushes, and a short-eared owl was spotted along the dunes - two were present yesterday.
There's still a few waders on the Scrape, including one or two avocets, dunlins, knots, spotted redshanks and curlews and several lapwings, black-tailed godwits and snipe. The ducks are looking very attractive in the breeding finery now - or at least the drakes are, as the ducks are typically much more drab, though no less attractive. For a real ID challenge, why not check through the gulls in search of Caspian and yellow-legged gulls - there have to been up to ten Caspian and 20 yellow-legged in the roost recently.
Drake teal by Sue Tranter (rspb-images.com) - the most numerous duck on the Scrape
The coal and marsh tits are still very busy on the visitor centre feeders, and goldcrests, jays and green woodpeckers may be spotted around the woods.
When we're not burning vegetation in front of the hides, the typical reedbed wildlife continues to show well at times. Two otters were seen at Bittern Hide before 9 am this morning, and bitterns, a great white egret and several marsh harriers may be spotted from both Bittern and Island Mere hides. Sadly, though, it looks like our very popular starling roost may have relocated elsewhere on the Suffolk coast - though we don't yet know where. After a pre-roost gathering over the Scrape, the flock headed south over Sizewell woods at about 3.15 pm yesterday, so perhaps they are now using RSPB North Warren or Thorpeness Mere.
A common darter by Ian Barthorpe - several were still flying today