Hello,
Welcome to another installment from the wardening team featuring some of the work we have been up to this week
Path Repairs
As many of you know, the west bank path, has seen better days with areas worn down to the membrane and when it rains lots of soft areas form. This doesn’t make it ideal for those with prams or wheelchairs. Therefore, whilst the reserve is almost visitor free, we took the opportunity to bring in a team of contractors to resurface the entire 1km stretch from the visitor centre to just before the beach. It certainly looks and feels much better, we hope you will agree when you are next able to visit.
The Klargester
Did you know our reserve isn’t connected to the main sewers but instead operates on Septic Tanks, this includes the public toilets?
The tank for the public toilets has become overgrown with bramble and so the week began with Ryan, Hayley and Jim making a start clearing it away. However, what can appear as a 5 minute task can quickly turn into something more. Some of the trees that overhang it were showing signs of rot, therefore the chainsaws were brought out and the trees were removed. The last thing anyone wants is a tree falling on a septic tank!
Flooding
Well we have faced even more rain and the flooding around the visitor centre has worsened. Fortunately, the flooding hasn’t entered the building, but we do need wellies to get into the office and across the courtyard. With the rest of the reserve saturated and a drain that flows nowhere, we will have contractors back on-site next week to install additional drainage.
With all this rain we have opened all our sluices that take water off the reserve in the hope of this water being pushed the site and away.
Heathland
Ryan, Jim and the wardens from our Nene reserves spent another day at one of our confidential sites to carry on removing pine, birch and alder from the heathland.
Freshwater Habitats
In the meantime, Hayley and I had a morning at Titchwell looking at amendments to the existing freshwater habitat designs and planning exactly where the predator fence would be situated. We were also able to explore some further areas of the reedbed that we may now add into the project to assist with spoonbills colonising the site.
Winter tidy up cont’d
After filling the skip last week of mainly beach rubbish, we exchanged skips on Tuesday which Hayley and I have managed to fill again.
Titchwell Habitat work
Ryan and I spent the last two days of the week out on the reserve at Titchwell completing several small tasks. We have thinned some of the mature willow near to Island Hide that were on the verge of falling over, this has created a more scalloped edge which the migrating passerines should enjoy.
Following the removal of some trees in front of our monitoring hide on the autumn trail we decided to do some tinkering. We have cut a block of mature reed and bramble from this area, creating a shallow pool adding some diversity to this area. With the brushcutters out we also cut some more vegetation on the banks in the reedbed to continue to facilitate access for us as we continue to plan for freshwater habitats project.
And finally…
Remember it is Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend. Follow the link for more information https://bit.ly/BGBWReserves