Hi again everyone, Joe here back from my holiday. Managed to fit a week’s worth of camping in the Cotswolds, my graduation, and a family holiday all into 20 days.
Rather fittingly, after just graduating as an official marine biologist, my first day back as a residential volunteer was spent at the beach. Myself and the other two ‘resi vols’, along with our duty manager, the team at Winterton and a good handful of volunteers, took down over 6km of fencing around what had been a little turn colony. The very same colony that I had spent a night shift protecting from predator disturbance with night vision goggles and very powerful torches, the day before I left for my holiday. Repeatedly walking up and down the 500-600m length of the fencing in the sand, along with pushing quad bikes up the dunes, was certainly exhausting. However, it was very rewarding at the same time. Tackling such a large project in a day, as part of a large team is extremely fun, and we surprisingly finished an hour early! Moreover, it was lovely to spend a sunny day at the beach, along with a very inquisitive seal watching us from the water. Additionally, I got to make a strange Archimedes style contraption to help reel in the rope in at the end of the day, (I’m not saying I reinvented the wheel or anything but I came pretty close), would definitely recommend.
To return to Strumpshaw, my time back has been full of tomatoes, courgettes, apples, plums from gardens, and blackberries gathered on public footpaths. Everyone here seems to have a garden or an allotment overflowing with produce, and as such, me and the other resi vols are inundated with fruits and vegetables. I don’t think I’ve ever been so healthy in all my life. This season of plenty has come at a very good time too. On the practical side of things there has been A LOT of reed piling. Many hot days have been spent following behind staff members conducting scheduled cuts of reed which are necessary to keep the broads open and allow certain flora and fauna that depend on disturbed areas of fen and a lack of total reed homogeneity to survive. Such as the critical milk parsley, which is the single food plant of the highly rare swallowtail caterpillar. Brush cutters whizz ahead, whilst the lowly pitchfork users are left in their wake piling the cut reed into discreet piles in order to limit the amount of fen surface covered in dead vegetation. This promotes biodiversity by exposing healthy fen area to adapted plant colonisation and the repeated sites of reed piling can generate peat which stores a lot of carbon. As much as I jokingly complain, there is a strange satisfaction to this work and watching another unnamed volunteer sink into a cryptic hole in the floor is a hilarious sight… even though karma did catch up to me eventually.
Before I depart to the engagement side of this month’s work, I finally saw a kingfisher! For some reason until now I had been very unlucky, with this sighting being my first in around a decade, very pleased to say the least. Of course, I must also mention the fabled honey buzzard (or two, or three, depending on who you ask), circling our reserve. This visitor seemingly only reveals itself to only the sharpest and/or luckiest eyed of our birders and as such we have started a dedicated sightings list in reception recording exact times and locations. Personally, I have only seen common buzzards as of yet but nonetheless this elusive bird has caused quite the stir.
I have also been engaged in quite a few Wild Family days, bush craft events and general youth engagement activities. One such day where I was responsible for the event, was a Wild Family Day where we provided, leaf ID picture frames and scavenger hunts, leaf on cloth printing, clay face making on trees and several scavenger hunts for kids to explore the woods with. Grubby hands and wide smiles belonging to the attendees were a sure sign of success and I found the whole day extremely enriching. In fact, I am currently practicing how to make a dragonfly out of card, pipe cleaners and decorative beads... interesting work to be sure.
So, in conclusion August has been another terrific month here at Strumpshaw, I am looking forward to more strange experiences and soon to be gorgeous autumn colours.
Joe signing off, see you soon.