Welcome back to the ‘monthly’ blog from the residential volunteer’s cottage at RSPB Strumpshaw Fen. At the time of writing this, the 2nd of November, Strumpshaw is mostly underwater. Having run out of odd jobs to help with, I thought it the perfect time to summarise the eventful month that was October.
This spooky month began with some good old-fashioned brush cutting of the reedbed, albeit with a dash of adventure thrown in. For you see, as opposed to the usual: load cutter into truck or trailer, walk to a plot, cut said plot then move on. This time, we walked around the reserve to a section of broad near tower hide. From here, the site warden Matt, produced a ladder and two planks of wood. The murky water sitting in front of me, which I had assumed to be impassable, had to be crossed to reach the island that we would be cutting. This crossing involved faithful steps into the murk, watching your booted feet disappear into the dark water, with hope of a foretold squishy bottom. After maybe 20 paces, we came to a spot where a deep underwater trench stood – a one-way ticket to a soggy fleece and hair smelling of stagnation for a week. Here the ladder and planks were used to construct a bridge over the chasm. Under the safe supervision of the team leader, one by one, we carefully walked the plank to the other side. We all made it without getting wet!
After this adventurous introduction to what I will name… ‘reed island’ (genius I know), we started cutting. The cut reed was then piled around the edges of the island to help protect the green shoots and new rhizomes of the reed from goose nibbling. The aim being to slightly grow the island. Additionally, some was used to fabricate a reed ‘jetty,’ sticking out into the clearer area of the broad. A small piece of habitat now a favourite spot for much of our wildlife and viewable from a bench on the visitor’s path.
This exceptional brush cutting day, (with the equally nerve-wracking journey back across the ‘bridge’), was to be one of the very few reed cutting days of October. Very shortly after this expedition, a combination of a strong north wind, a huge amount of rainwater and particularly high tides, meant the water around the reserve rose by a staggering amount. The levels have fluctuated, but overall, they have remained very high. Resulting in pond dipping platforms disappearing and the cormorant’s post vanishing underwater, (which produced a very confused and annoyed bird). All this however, did not stop our work. With a huge variety of jobs to get done and the monumental task of delivering our Halloween events fast approaching.
Halloween was a giant undertaking; many weeks of planning and preparation had started all the way back in September but now things were really speeding up. For the daytime Halloween activities, which would run all of October half term, we decided to run with Wizard School. An event that would see ~450 kids come to Strumpshaw to learn how to be a wizard. For this educational enterprise four classes had to be created. We went with:
In addition to this, a magic games area was set up and a graduation stage was constructed for all successful students to pose for a memorable photo.
Needless to say, this took A LOT of research, brainstorming, set up and making resources. I have never painted so many chalkboard signs in my life. The rain seemed determined to wash the chalk signage off every board, so I was in a constant race against the elements. Overall, however, it was a roaring success, we had a huge number of visitors to the reserve, all with outstanding feedback! More importantly seeing the joy on kids’ faces becoming wizards was beautiful. During this time, we also ran Strumpshaw’s Halloween evening event Creatures of the night. Families came along to experience the reserve at night and learn about a range of wildlife. Activities included bat detecting, owl pellet dissections, lantern making, marshmallows and more. This again had a huge turn out, with even the bats coming out in unusually high numbers.
All this Halloween themed theatrics involved a lot of art. Lanterns were made, bats constructed, wooden pumpkins painted, signs designed and more. However, for me, one thing overshadowed it all. One of my pieces of chalk art was posted on the RSPB England Facebook feed! This was for their bird-tober art challenge, where all volunteers and staff were asked to submit their arty creations. I submitted a timelapse of myself creating a chalkboard sign of a Greater Spotted Woodpecker.
October also saw our first Fungi Walk. Thanks to October’s balmy beginning combined with more than enough rain, the fungi have been showing fantastically all Autumn. Just over 100 different species of fungi were identified. We had brilliant feedback from those that attended, and our second walk is now sold out.
The water levels have impacted on the work we have been able to undertake for the last part of this month. The fact that the gauge board almost vanished from the front of reception, shows how high the water is across all the reedbed. This has meant it has been too high to get out into the reedbed to do anymore habitat management work. We therefore started tackling every job that had previously been trumped by brush cutting; deadwood management, maintaining signage, building signage stores, replenishing the den building area building materials, shifting wood stores (that have sat still for far too long) and many more random activities. Although slightly bity, I have found this variety quite fun and extremely varied days keeps boredom far, far, away.
Finally, though the hustle and bustle at Strumpshaw has died down as Halloween has passed us by, I am sure that as Christmas creeps up we shall all be revving up again soon.
So, there we have it, October 2023 at Strumpshaw Fen wrapped up in a rather lengthy summary. I have really enjoyed this month, a brilliant mix of every kind of practical experience imaginable combined with Halloween arts and crafts. Furthermore, I was even given the title(s) of Professor Joe, the warlock, the druid and various other names… fantastic.
Joe signing off, see you soon.