Reserve news from residential volunteer Belinda
Another week is over and once again it has been very busy.
There a lot of visible changes which have been made on the reserve as the truxor has been on site cutting reed and clearing the ditches. The areas that have been cut are in front of the fen hide, the borrow pits along the west bank path and the reed bed poo plus a few other areas which aren't viewable from the paths. This management will not only open the views to the visitors but will keep the channels clear, allowing the flow of water between areas and as the cutting is done on rotation it creates a mosaic of different age structures on the reserve. Hopefully bittern sightings will become more frequent.
We have also cleared and raked the reed on the dragonfly pool. This will help the regeneration of the reed surrounding the pool to benfit reed warblers and water voles. We were lucky to see a water vole as we were clearing the cut reed.
We have managed to burn some of the material we cut the previous week on Patsy's pool but due to the weather not being the best we will have to burn the remainder next week.
We have noticed a significant increase in people straying off the paths at the eastern end of Patsy's reedbed which flushes the birds that use this pool. As this can provide good viewing opportunities to provide a more suitable viewing area to ensure disturbance is minimised whilst enjoying the willdife. In the meantime we have constructed a fence line on the far end of Patay's pool to prevent any further disturbance.
Outside the café a new station for seat mats, sugar etc has been installed with the hope of making the area outside of the café look tidier.
On Tuesday evening we had a volunteer and staff walk to see the Little Egret and Marsh Harrier roost. Thank you to everyone that came and hopefully you all enjoyed it. A record 52 marsh harriers came into roost along with 2 hen harriers and 124 little egrets.
This weekend we have a Christmas tree displayed at the Hunstanton Christmas Tree festival which is in the town hall. Please do visit if you get the chance.
That is all for this week and I am sure next week will be equally busy.