After a few months of hard work, the viewing screen that looks out over the northern part of the Otmoor reedbed has been completed! The Tuesday work party have done an amazing job and the finished screen looks very professional. Benches, stoned floor and guttering have been added, with finishing touches including elbow rests to be put in at a later date. Attention is now going to shift to starting work on the southern screen.
Water levels are being reduced in the northern reedbed at the moment, this serves a number of purposes, as not only is it good to have some movement of water through a reedbed, but it also means that later in the year we can get onto the islands to carry out annual management work. On top of this, the reedbed acts as a water storage reservoir, so at this time of year (now all the tractor work has finished) we can let excess water flow out into the Greenaways and Big Otmoor fields, wetting them up for all the ducks and other water birds that come to the reserve during the winter.