An update from our newest warden, Andy.
Now the flood waters have receded across the brooks, the wardening team have been able to get out and assess the damage to fence-lines and gateways caused by the water. Now we’ve been able to do this, we have a list of repairs to keep us going for some time.
To start with we have worked with our valiant volunteers to repair and replace the fenceline separating the nature trail from the brooks between Winpenny Hide and West Mead Hide. If you’ve been to reserve on a Tuesday over the last couple weeks, you will have noticed these guys busily battling miles and miles of barbed wire.
Most of the fence repair has been quite simple – we’ve just had to replace fenceposts that have rotten through, or been broken by the wave action of the water. In a few places, including just to the left of Winpenny hide, several posts have been ripped out of the ground by the action of the water.
In other places the repair work is more complex and involves rather a large amount of digging. The barbed wire has to be tensioned in order to be effective, so every so often we dig a large post into the ground, called a strainer, which we then use as an anchor point for the wire. These posts tend to be 7 to 8 foot in length and we usually have to dig a 3 foot deep hole to take the post! This is quite a large amount of work; luckily the ground is quite soft at the moment.
We’ve also been out adjusting our water management systems to maintain the correct levels of flooding to benefit our breeding wader population, and also to provide open-water areas for the remaining ducks. This has required me (as the newest and junior member of the wardening team) to don chest waders and spend a significant amount of time standing in ditches, wrestling pipes.
I’ve also been out with members of our volunteer team installing new owl nest boxes. I know it’s really the wrong time of year to put these up; usually they should be installed in the autumn into early winter, in order to allow the birds to check them out before breeding starts. However, while they might not get used this year by owls they could get used by other species.
We put one barn owl box up over the South Brooks and one tawny owl box in Black wood. Both are visible from Hail’s view.
A consequence of the fencing work means that on Tuesdays for the foreseeable future, there will be disruption in several areas. This will be particularly in front of West Mead Hide. We are keeping the Visitor Centre Staff informed of where we are working, so they can pass this information on to you. There will also be some disruption on occasion when we are adjusting water levels or working to repair gateways.