A round up of the reserve team's work this week...
Ringed plovers
The week started with some ringed plover monitoring work at both Titchwell and Snettisham beaches. At Titchwell we were pleased to see adults still sitting tight on the three nests on Monday and even more delighted on Wednesday to see one pair had hatched three chicks. We’re keeping a close eye to see if they fledge successfully. Over at Snettisham, under Jim's watchful eye, the last few chicks are now fledging. We’ll be sharing the news on fledging success from this special reserve soon.
Hides and signage
As the swallows fledged from Island Hide at Titchwell and Shore Hide at Snettisham last week, re-opening these hides was top of our list of jobs for this week.
We brush cut and raked, cleaned, scrubbed and swept, put directional signs up and repaired holes that had appeared in the paths.
These two hides are now open! Island Hide is providing some cracking views of ruff, little ringed plover, avocets and spoonbills and Shore Hide is great for black-tailed godwit, knot, dunlin and common terns. Remember, if you visit, there are limits on the numbers of people inside the hides at any one time.
We also took the opportunity to create and put up some bird ID signage at Titchwell. We hope this will help some of our new visitors pick out some of the different species on the reserve.
Beach nesting bird cordons
We spent the afternoon on Wednesday removing the redundant nesting cordon on the beach to the east side of Titchwell reserve and packing it away again ready for next year. As we do this work we continue to think and talk about what we can do differently next year to improve the chances of success for our beach nesting birds. There are still three small cordons in place, two protecting nests and one to give a safe space for the hatched chicks to retreat to.
Social media
Lizzie and I joined our Visitor Operations Manager, Lucy, for a socially distanced meeting this week to plan our social media content for the month of August which includes this reserve team update. Do let us know if you enjoy, or otherwise, reading what we’ve been up to! We’ve got lots of posts planned across our social media channels so do make sure you’re following us for the latest news, sightings and updates from Titchwell and Snettisham. Search RSPB Titchwell Marsh on both twitter and Facebook to find us.
Welcome hub
If you’ve visited the reserve over the last few weeks, you’ll have seen our new welcome hub building under construction. My job as Senior Sites Manager includes project managing this piece of work and I have been spending time this week to ensure the project is progressing as it should.
Duty managers
The reserve team also supports the visitor team with duty manager shifts and the three of us all take a day each per week, and one in four weekends, as Duty Manager. This involves opening and closing, dealing with emergencies and ensuring visitors are having a safe and enjoyable visit.
Safe and sound
Reserve safety checks are a regular job we do to make sure nobody comes to any harm whilst spending time on our reserves. This safety check gives us the opportunity to have a thorough look at infrastructure across the reserves to make sure it is in a safe condition currently and identify any maintenance or repair work needed to ensure it doesn’t become unsafe in the future. We carried out the safety checks, logged actions and filed the reports for both Snettisham and Titchwell.
And finally
We carried out patrols of one of our confidential reserves we manage for wildlife asking trespassers to leave and clearing away litter and waste that had been left. Not a nice job, but one that we take seriously to ensure wildlife can continue to thrive in these special places.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this update. We’ll be back with another next week!
Hayley
Senior Sites Manager, North West Norfolk Reserves