Reserve Roundup
On Tuesday we were joined not only Sophie, Bob and Anita but also a couple of placement students from WWT Washington, Ed and Emily. They came to the site to experience a volunteer task and learn about reserve.
The team began the day with some volunteer led nest box monitoring whilst Isaac, JC and Jake completed their hide and building monitoring. Although we are coming to the end of breeding season there was still some bird activity. A new confirmed tree sparrow brood was recorded, a chick was seen calling and a new house sparrow brood was discovered, signifying that the sparrows are not done yet with this year’s breeding attempts. In regards to the birds using the hides and buildings, it is predominantly swallows on their second brood of the year with a few house martins.
In the afternoon, Jake, Sophie, Bob and Anita headed off to the summer trail to collect some more wildflower seeds. Predominantly they collected yellow rattle and red clover but also picked up any other seeds that looked ready for collection to add to the diversity of our wildflower mix. It was probably the last wildflower collection mission on the summer trail this year with the remaining collection being from the saltmarsh. Everyone who has helped to collect seeds has done an excellent job in ensuring that with have a plentiful amount of seed that, once dried and processed, can be spread onto areas of the reserve that are currently lacking in wildflower biodiversity in the coming months.
Wednesday was a more maintenance and task prep focused day. Malcolm came in to help out with mowing the summer trail, as always he did a smashing job despite the wet conditions. JC did a lot of brush cutting in the paddocks in preparation for the Thursday task while Isaac did some general tidying around the yard. In the afternoon, Isaac joined JC on the brush cutters and began to tackle the Folly Pond islands. But first we had to get onto the islands. This involved slipping into some waders and carefully carrying the brush cutters over the pond. Once over we could start to put a dent in the mammoth task which will be finished off on Tuesday by the volunteers. The aim is to keep the vegetation down to improve sight lines for visitors to view the birds using the folly pond but it also helps to reduce the vegetation build up and subsequent succession on and surrounding the islands. The folly pond is not that deep and if left the vegetation (mainly willow and rush) could begin to expand into the lower areas and reduce the amount of bare ground and water. Not ideal for migrating waders.
On Thursday the team were joined by Joanna. There was a surprise patch of nice weather in the morning so Jake decided he would seize the opportunity to complete a butterfly transect. He set out for the merse where he walked the entire length of the Eastpark merse, recording every butterfly he saw. JC and Joanna did the same but on the summer trail. As we are going into the later stages of summer there were less individuals about but they still spotted six different species: large white, small white, green-veined white, red admiral, peacock and comma. Once JC and Joanna had completed their transect, they joined Isaac in the paddocks for some weeding. They set about clearing the path of weeds to keep the site looking its best. Once the paddocks were completed they tackled some seed processing to keep on top of the ever growing wildflower seed collection we are gathering.
As always, many thanks to all the Guide-in-the-Hides and Visitor Centre volunteers who came in. This week we’d like to thank Jane, Mary, Tony, both Fionas and Heather who were in the visitor centre and out and about on the reserve greeting and informing visitors.
Feature photo peacock butterfly by James Lees.
