Weekly Blog
August 6th – 10th
Hi everyone,
I’m Sam, from Essex and I’m here volunteering for the week.
At the reserve I accomplished numerous tasks such as; beach visits ( to monitor the seals), cleared roost bank at Snettisham, identifying moths and counting them, rip up exposed material along the paths, covered up the materials we teared up, collected litter, installed posts to track erosion levels and cleaned hides. Regular jobs included changing bird feeders over and sweeping the courtyard on a daily basis. This has really taught me the importance to volunteer and how your work can make a difference.
Hi Ben here,
We have been carrying out some path maintenance this week. As Sam said we were tearing up some of the old underlay that was starting to show up through the path and creating a trip hazard. We covered the torn out patches with more path material so there should be no trip hazards to worry about along the paths.
After the tidal surge in December 2013 there was an increased amount of erosion along the bank between Volunteer Marsh and Fresh Marsh. You may have noticed that we installed gabions and rock armour along the bank to strengthen it and stop salt water entering our fresh water habitats. We noticed a few weeks ago that the bank alongside of the West Bank path (also along Volunteer Marsh) has started eroding as well. We have put in place some posts along the bank so we can take measurements to monitor the rate of erosion along the bank. From this we can decide what needs to be done in the long run for the bank, and the path on top, to remain safe to use.
We caught 458 moths this week. A total of 82 species. Some of the highlights were; Sharp Angled Peacock, Canary Shouldered Thorn, Pale Mottled Willow, Flounced Rustic, Pebble Prominent, Elephant Hawk Moth, Ringed China Mark, Pretty Chalk Carpet, Willow ermine, Webb’s Wainscot and Marbled Clover.
We also spent a day at Snettisham this week. We were hand pulling all the Sticky Groundsel on the main wader roost bank on pit 4. This bank is used by tens of thousands of roosting waders all year round so we need to keep the vegetation low to keep conditions on the bank ideal for the waders. We got most of the work done but will return next week to finish it off.
Knot at Snettisham by Les Bunyan
Water levels were low on Freshmarsh this week, so we have opened up the sluice to allow water onto this area from the reedbed.
Birdfair is next week and if will be there on Sunday 19th why not head to the Harrier lecture marquee for 10.30am and hear our warden Lizzie, talk about the future of Titchwell, revealing our plans to redesign the freshwater habitats to make it better and more resilient to climate change.