Junior Wetland Warden Log 3
Guest blog by WWT London Wetland Centre Learning Officer Paul Lawston
Rain may be unwelcome to many but for our Wetland Wardens it proved quite handy this week! After making our wooden refugia last week we dug some pitfall traps. These are used to survey minibeasts by putting a container in the ground in to which they fall. Obviously, this involves a lot of digging, but with the rain that fell we were able to make short work of it in the soft ground. To make one, you dig a large hole in which you place a jam jar. The rim of the jar should be flush with the edge of the hole. You then fill the soil around it and place a cover over the top held up by four stones. This stops the rain from getting in. Because we don’t want our animals dying in the traps when we’re not using them, we left the lids on the jars so nothing would fall in, but we can’t wait to try them out.
We’ve also been doing some surveys to investigate some of the plants and animals that live here. On Tuesday and Thursday we went pond dipping in some of the wilder areas, including the stream by the Cricklade water meadow. We managed to catch water scorpions, scary-looking bugs with snorkels on their bottoms, and even an eft, a newt tadpole. Our wardens were of all ages, but we may have an age record when little Tegan got stuck in with a net at a mere 3 and a half years old. On Saturday we even found time to conduct a survey of the reptiles in one of our usually off-limits areas. We found lots of slow-worms, a type of legless lizard, but nothing quite beats the thrill of lifting up a sheet of corrugated iron to see what might be living underneath.
All in all we’ve had a lot of fun but also done some valuable work to improve and monitor the habitats here at WWT London Wetland Centre. So we’d like to say a big thank you to all our Wetland Wardens for helping us out!
