Yesterday we held the first of our fortnightly work parties of 2011 with the mental health charity Rethink . These regular gatherings have had an understated but hugely significant impact on the management of these reserves, (and consequently for the reserves' wildlife) since we began working in cohorts in 2005. Before this point labour intensive and time devouring tasks were the sole preserve of the warden, estate worker and the occasional volunteer. Often despite weeks of trying, undertakings such as ragwort removal were never completed. For a couple of hours each fortnight Rethink provide us with a willing workforce of between 4 and 12 and make light of daunting, heavy jobs such as reed cutting (and moving), jap weed cutting and bagging, the aforementioned (and entirely hideous) ragwort pulling and - as demonstrated yesterday - scrub and tree work.
Working in the scrub known as the Secret Garden our able accomplices busied away coppicing poplars with hand saws and dragging the trunks through the reedy margins to our fire site. Here the limbs were lopped off and burned and the straight trunks piled up to be used in the construction of reed screens, (see earlier blog A Grand Tradition for details).
All the while the clearing saw was revving away cutting a new glade through a dense stand of black thorn, a part of the compartment's long-term management and the resulting thorny arisings again dragged fire-wards by our invaluable allies.
The above photograph of the Secret Garden shows the works that have taken place in recent years. This was a solid block of blackthorn that we have cleared, added a network of pools, habitat piles and witnessed an explosion in floral and invertebrate diversity. In February a mini digger will add further pools and hydrological connectivity.
For additional information on the fantastic work undertaken by Rethink nationally click on the link below.
http://www.rethink.org/