Site Manager, Andrew Gouldstone, has written the following blog all about the work on Rainham West. Take it away Andrew:
Some of you may remember a piece that I wrote for the blog last winter, describing an encounter with a bearded tit (of the avian variety) on the northern boardwalk. That encounter happened whilst I’d been thinking through the various permissions that we needed, so that we could undertake new habitat work on the far western end of the marshes, at Rainham West.
Well, the thinking time paid off, we secured all the required permissions, and during November, all the planned work was completed.
So Rainham West now has a new livestock fence, and we have re-profiled 490m of ditches for water vole, opened out 300m of ditches to benefit breeding and wintering waders, and created 8 new wader scrapes totalling nearly 9000m2.
A new ditch by Andrew Gouldstone
A footdrain feature by Andrew Gouldstone
The talented Ian, from Pearls, creating a new scrape feature by Andrew Gouldstone
Some of the new wader scrapes and ditches are connected to main river, meaning they have a supply of water to help keep them wet. This connection also means that the marshes can play a role in storing water, helping with local flood management.
This is only the second major piece of habitat creation to ever be completed on Rainham West, and it has already helped to transform this part of the reserve.
I said above that all the planned work was completed – this isn’t quite accurate. Several small sections of work were not done this year, due to time and weather, so these will be completed next year.
Whilst the work was underway, Ian, our digger driver, had pied wagtails, starlings, meadow pipits, reed buntings, magpies, black-headed gulls and even stonechats as near constant companions, looking for food being exposed as the work was being done. The pied wagtails especially were almost fearless, foraging very close to the digger and its bucket.
We are grateful to the following organisations who have supported this and other work on the marshes this autumn - Environment Agency, London Borough of Havering, Natural England, Land of the Fann’s (Heritage Lottery Fund) and the Veolia Maintenance Trust.