Autumn and winter are busy seasons at North Warren with much work to be done on the heath and in the reedbed in preparation for next year’s breeding season. The volunteer winter work parties have started up again and tasks so far have involved gorse coppicing and birch clearance on the heath as well as building a bridge over a ditch into the reedbed to allow easier access for the Truxor (see picture below).
The Truxor – an amphibious reed cutting machine – arrived on the reserve yesterday to begin work in the reedbed. Each year it maintains the reedbed at North Warren by clearing the ditches from encroaching reed and keeping the open pools of water from becoming choked with vegetation. This year, thanks to a grant from SITA, we are able to carry out extra work on top of the routine maintenance. This will allow us to cut some reed plots in the wetter areas of the reedbed that cannot be accessed and cut by hand.
This is fantastic news for the bitterns as it will vary the age structure of the reed, providing good feeding areas in the short term and hopefully good nesting conditions in a few years time.
A couple of rare wildlife highlights from the autumn included the Sandhill crane which paid a brief visit to the North Warren grazing marsh at the beginning of October, only a lucky few had the opportunity to see it here before it moved south to Boyton marshes where it was photographed by Jon Evans.
The dusky warbler stayed around for a few days giving birders tantalising snippets of call from time to time whilst remaining well hidden in the scrub by the footpath accross the grazing marsh. Some people caught a glimpse of it as it flitted along patches of bramble but it wasn’t until the last day of its stay that visitors were treated to a good view of it.
Why don't you head down to the North Warren reedbed at dusk for a wildlife spectacle? At the moment we have between 7,000 and 10,000 starlings and up to 12 marsh harriers roosting in the reedbed - well worth a visit!