Our reserve interns’ training continued this week with the safe use of a clearing saw. The practical task involved removing small birch trees to maintain areas of open heath at Blaxhall Common nature reserve. The group were rewarded with a woodlark singing overhead while they were working. 

The Bradfield Woods team were forced to take a break from coppicing due to a sudden thunderstorm and downpour. 

The team at Carlton Marshes has been cutting small trees and scrub on areas of Oulton Marshes to keep the marsh habitat nice and open for wintering and breeding wetland birds. They also finished off the new gateways with post and rail borders.  

The Carlton team were pleased that their marsh management was paying off when around 600 pink footed geese dropped in at Oulton Marshes. The pink-footed goose is one of our smaller geese, with a relatively short neck, rounded head and short bill. It flies here from Greenland and northern Europe in October to spend the winter, returning north in April. 

The wetter areas at Oulton Marshes are being topped up by wind pump and have been attracting lots of bird life. Over 300 lapwing were the highlight, but snipe, starling and a variety of gulls were also enjoying the flooded scrapes. 

The belted Galloway cattle (or Belties) have done an excellent job of summer grazing at Carlton Marshes, and after a brief stint in the reedbeds to maintain a good vegetation structure, they have come off to drier ground for the winter. Warden Lewis Yates had to take a roundabout route to fetch the cows off Peto’s Marsh, but they were keen to follow once he showed them the way. 

The Belties have been keenly scratching their itches now they are off the marsh and have a few more trees to use. They will be back out on the marshes next spring. 

The South East reserves team have been continuing with wetland enhancement works at Stanny Marshes. This week they have been restoring some foot drains to attract breeding lapwing and redshank next year.  

Valley Fens Wardens Richard Young and his wonderful team of volunteers have been busy with scrub clearance on areas of Middle Fen at Redgrave and Lopham Fen. They remove young scrub in certain areas of the reserve to maintain open fen habitat, otherwise it would take over and smother the specialist fen flora. The group snapped some lovely fungi during the work party.