Now that we have established safe working practices and reopened two hides and the autumn trail we have started to use some of the extension car park to slightly increase visitor capacity on site, therefore I started the week by strimming some of the encroaching vegetation to better aid parking.
Following last winters work on the apple trees, there is a great crop of apples. We therefore installed a small sign requesting that the apples are not picked for your consumption but to leave them for our wildlife.
Following these little jobs Hayley and I moved on to the incredibly fiddly and frustrating task of repairing the broken windows within the Fen hide. Thankfully we both have small hands which makes the task slightly easier though it still took up most of our day. But we are pleased to say that all the windows within this hide are now working.
Lizzie repairing Fen Hide windows
Moving onto Tuesday and I was fortunate to spend most of it on the beach taking down the remaining beach cordons we had for the nesting ringed plovers. The last pairs have hatched their chicks and have moved them away from the cordons, so they are now redundant for this year. We now wait in anticipation in the hope that these last two broods fledge their chicks.
Wednesday, saw Hayley, Jim and I head off to one of our confidential sites to make a start on repairing our perimeter fence that keeps people out of the site and installing additional warning signage. It was an incredibly hot day and we are thankful that we at least had some tree cover to keep us out of the sun.
Not all our work involves being outside on the reserves. Thursday was an admin day for us with me being Duty Manager at Titchwell, which involves being the onsite first aider, dealing with any issues and supporting our visitor operations team. Hayley spent the day working from home planning a virtual launch of our new hide, Knots Landing, at Snettisham. Once we have worked out the details, we will share this with you. As for Jim he has been burning the vegetation on the roost bank at Snettisham and obtaining materials for a new boardwalk and screening required for Knots Landing.
Friday was all about visitor management and supervising contractors. Our contractors who are constructing the Welcome Hub were on site with a mini digger installing the soak away which therefore meant diverting visitors down the access road to ensure safe working practices. To ensure our visitors didn’t get lost we were busy directing them around the diversions. We also had the electricians on site who have made a start installing the electricity and lighting into the Welcome Hub.
And finally...anyone for a game of football?