John Hughes ... The Wicken Fen Vision Warden's Blog

Wild Campsite Still Slowly Taking Shape

2012-03-11T14:44:00.003-07:00

It is a slow process as we have a few things going on at the moment but we did get a good day down there on Friday. We started the roofs and getting some of the finishing touches to some aspects, like the front logs getting straightened up. Next on the list is building the toilet. The current plan is a pyramid style structure as I fancy something a bit different, hopefully with ivy growing up to cover the wood in time. The clay ramp leading to it is already in place but the rest is only in my mind and on a few scraps of paper.

Spot the Owl....

2012-03-09T13:39:00.004-08:00

The camera resolution might not be that great and it was taken through a dirty tractor window but........ can you spot the Short Eared Owl?

There aren’t as many as there once were, but Burwell Fen is still a great place to go to see Short Eared Owls. I was driving down the edge of one of the fields and the one in the picture came and landed right next to me. I stopped and grabbed my phone and couldn’t see it anymore but took a photo anyway. Great camouflage.

Looks like summer

2012-03-03T12:56:00.005-08:00

To control the thistles and to get a hay crop, the small section of Tubney Fen next to the Bridge is being cut and cleared. With the bales in the field it looks at first glance like the end of summer. Hopefully there will be some bails of hay in their place in June/July.

By cutting now ground nesting birds will be protected as they are not yet nesting. With a spot of luck the grass will grow, birds such as Skylarks will nest and then the chicks will fledge before the hay is cut as late as possible. As the hay grows it will provide a valuable habitat for other species including the grasses themselves.

A nice walk to Kingfisher Bridge

2012-03-03T12:42:00.005-08:00

We had to give the football a miss today as diesel is so expensive, so we went on a nice wander instead.....instead of watching the U’s lose at Forest Green Rovers it turns out. Oh well. But the walk was really good.

I have never been to Kingfisher Bridge before and as it is just down the road from us it was about time. Now before I go and tell everyone to go for an explore down there I should point out it is privately owned and please check out http://www.kfbweb.info/visiting.html before heading down. It is an amazing place. Personally I would recommend parking at Upware and taking the hours walk down. You can have a nice lunch down the Five Miles Pub too. There are some longer circular walks but we just headed down to Kingfisher Bridge and back the same way.

Also Commissioners Pit is on the way, and well worth a visit, this time of year is great as there are no mosquitoes down there.

Commissioners Pit

Drove from Upware, sorry I forget its name

Dimmocks Cote Quarry

An amazing bat box

The Mere

Living hide

Long time no blog.

2012-02-27T11:03:00.004-08:00

Sorry I haven’t updated for a while. After that snow I spent a few weeks updating the health and safety paperwork, doing some planning applications and planning some mowing work. Not the kind of exciting things I like to post about : -)

But more recently I have been getting things moving again. Most notably strimming the sides of Reach Lode Bridge. I have only got the South side done so far. I am hoping to organise some contractors to continue the process with some mowers over the year to get the grass established on the banks. It is hard work doing it by hand and climbing up and down the steep banks won’t be good for them in the long term.

There are many things on the list to get done, and I am sorry that they are still waiting. Notably they Omega signs for Burwell Fen, Tubney Fen and Oily Hall that were stolen and fell off are in need of being replaced, the big concrete blocks still need moving from the Lodes Way and lots of small tidying up jobs.

My main focus for the coming weeks is getting some areas cut. This is for two reasons. Firstly ground works for the creation of a bridge over Burwell Lode are due to begin. Sadly this does not mean that we are in a position to actually build the bridge! But we are in the position to get the ball rolling. Secondly some areas are being targeted to control notifyable weeds. By cutting now we prevent ground nesting birds from taking up residence as the grass grows longer in the spring. Only a small area will be affected and there is plenty of room elsewhere for them to take advantage of.

Wild Camping, Geology, Archaeology and Snow!

2012-02-05T08:57:00.000-08:00

Firstly here are some pictures of where we are with the Wild Campsite. We still have a lot to do but they are taking shape. The next big job is to get the roofs on. A group from the Perse School have then agreed to help start the next stage in March. The next stage being building the toilet, grassing the roof and making the fire pit.

Geology, Archaeology

We went to a really interesting talk on the Archaeology and Geology of Wicken and Upware at the Wicken Village hall on Saturday. I had no idea that there was so much interesting stuff at Dimmocks Cote Quarry. Bronze Age burials, houses, a barrow, a possible religious building, and learned plenty about the geology of the area. Including finding out that the fossils we found in the Burwell Bund borrow pit are Bivalves and over 100,000,000 years old!

http://library.thehumanjourney.net/316/

Finally The Snow

Here are some pictures from Sunday. Check out the 8ft tall snowman at the Wicken Visitor Centre and the other ones next to the door and at Upware.

Helping Waterbeach Primary School redo their pond.

2012-01-29T10:54:00.000-08:00

Well today was the big day, we drained the pond, re lined it and started to re fill it. Simple as that? No it wasn’t, but with loads of us helping we got the job done.

Firstly we got our pump going and the water began to drop, but this soon slowed as it got progressively more and more clogged, even standing in the pond and continually cleaning it was no use in the end. Plenty of people with rakes cleaned the debris away but as we got lower the expected sludge caught up with us far sooner than I had predicted. The buckets came out and chains of muddy people got the sludge away, and cleaned the pond back to the original liner. We then lined the old liner with a protective layer and overlaid that with the new liner. In went some water to and all the frogs we had caught, then all of the buckets and containers of original pond water and minibeasts that Mrs Johnstone and her students had saved a few days ago. The plan now is to see if the Fire Brigade can lend a hand and re-fill it with non tap water.This will pull the liner into place, so in the meantime we weighed the edges down to keep the wind out.

Meanwhile there was plenty of other activity, the Ivy was being pulled off the trees, branches cut back and dragged off and out of the way. There was also plenty of soil turned over in the vegetable garden. Lots of hard work.

Here are some pictures from today.

Still building those shelters....

2012-01-24T13:19:00.000-08:00

Had a bit of a catch up day today. You can defiantly work in the rain, and we got totally soaked on Friday building the shelters, but today was a good day to stay in the dry and get some things ticked of lists. Hope we can get these shelters finished sooner than later. There are many things to do elsewhere on the Vision. Moving concrete blocks, fixing new Omega signs up, still rolling out the new locks, fixing a lot of fences, litter picking, getting new fences built by contractors and the rest..... The winter is a good time to catch up on work and I would love to get things up to standard. Lets hope for a good day tomorrow.

Get the Chainsaws Out

2012-01-16T16:29:00.000-08:00

Sadly the strong winds last week brought down a nice old Willow Tree at the end of Wicken Lode. It was nice old tree, so nice in fact I took a pic of it just the other day. It was great for wildlife too as it had plenty of standing deadwood at various heights, lots of craks and rotten wood.James, our Senior Warden and Kate, a full time volunteer did most of the hard work and I chopped a few bits off and helped move the big bits out of the way. It was a bit of a problem for us though was it was too large for our saws, so we had to borrow a bigger one from Anglesey Abbey. Good fun until you have to sharpen it.

A rare picture of me.Getting there, you might have noticed my saw got blunt on one side and it got a bit of a bend, in fact this pic is terrible, honest the rest of the cuts were not a massive mess like that!:

While I am on there was a lovely Sunset this evening (taken from next to the Five Miles from Anywhere in Upware):

Camping Shelters

2012-01-16T15:57:00.000-08:00

Well they take a bit to build. Many many measurements to be made, joints cut things worked out. I even had to ring bind the instructions we were using as they were out so often! Without Jamie and Steve it would have been almost impossible, it was fantastic to have these two super skilled people at hand.

Now one is almost done the plan is to use a chainsaw to do the other three. Well 2 as hopefully we have enough logs made up to fit a second one together. Jamie made a nice jig to help my cutting to be as accurate as possible.

Here is one going up and some pictures from Oily Hall:

Early Start:

Steve at work:

A Wild Camp Site at Oily Hall

2012-01-09T13:01:00.000-08:00

The construction has begun! The good news is the chaps from Cambridge Restoration are at hand to help (do almost everything), the bad news is we only have them for one week.

So what is a wild camping site?

It is camping without a tent, you book up, walk down and stay overnight. You need a sleeping bag and so on, but the rain is kept off and the fire can help to keep the worst of any cold away. I don’t have a picture of a finished one handy, I will try to get one in the next few days from the office. Imagine a shoulder high shelter, with a curved roof, all made from nice big logs.

Here is where we have got to so far, lots of working things out today....

There is quite a bit more work to get done.

Burwell Fen Water Abstraction

2012-01-04T06:53:00.000-08:00

It is almost ready to be turned on!

After the long process of constructing the waterproof bund around the Southerly half of Burwell Fen we are nearing the point where we get to turn the key and let some water on. The plan is to increase the winter water table by a few centimetres and create some sections of permanent standing water. This is best achieved by increasing the amount of water we abstract over several years.

The water is being abstracted from Pout Hall Corner where Burwell Lode meets Reach Lode, it then runs through the intake across the bank, down the side of Reach Lode bank, through the metre and out of the end of the pipe into the stones. The stones help to reduce erosion where the water enters the fen.

The two pictures below show the abstraction point nearing completion.

The map shows the maximum water coverage within the waterproof bund. This will be the case in a few years with a spot of luck. I do want to stress that it shows the highest level of coverage during the seasonal water level change, where the water table rises in the winter and falls in the summer. With the exception of the borrow pit at the East end of the map the water will only be several inches deep before it falls away in the summer. It is worth noting that the whole area is below sea level so the high water level is at -1.4m.

Happy New Year

2012-01-02T12:39:00.000-08:00

With it being a lovely day we decided to take our boat down Wicken Lode. As I work on the Fen we have been there a fair few times! but it is a lovely place to go and right on our doorstep. We only moor around the corner. Also we wanted to run the engines for a bit. There were a good number of people going for a walk too, enjoying the winter Sun. Here are some pictures from our trip, and some from our walk at Reach Lode Bridge on New Year's Eve. Sadly my camera hasn’t quite captured the Sunset but I hope you get the idea.

Reach Lode Bridge Repair Work

2011-12-15T08:02:00.000-08:00

Mike Overall has been down on site for the last two days working on getting transition plates fitted and racking the big metal side fences back into shape. Where the clay banks have settled a gap has been slowly appearing, we have been fixing this as it developed. Recently BAM Nutall came down to re-surface the ramps and bring them back up to height. As the ramps are likely to be subject to more moment a hinged plate has been added. As the ramps move a smooth transition from bridge to cycle track will remain. Check out Mike’s webpage http://www.mikeoverall.co.uk/ he is certainly worth a look if you have any metalwork to do.

In other news regular visitors to Burwell fen may have spotted some interesting spellings as well as wildlife. My nice sign is somewhat embarrassingly talking about ‘signed routs’ not ‘signed routes’. I haven’t had the chance to change them. Any regular visitors to this blog might have noticed my poor spellings! Sorry about that I do try to keep it acceptable.

Bit of a catch up.

2011-12-07T11:16:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since my past post. So what has been going on.... well the cattle handling unit or coral got its crash barriers attached. Johnny also put it to the test and rounded up the cows to take one back to calf. Still a few finishing touches to do. Cut the top of the post off and reinforcing the fence being the main bits. While I am on about Johnny and the cattle here is a link to Spinney Abbey Farm’s website. Plenty of lovely produce and some ghost stories too.

http://www.spinneyabbey.co.uk/

Also Jason finished fencing the ha-ha on Burwell fen. The idea did work in part, and it was a shame to have to fence it, but we got to keep them cows off the path. In areas where the ditch is likely to hold water all year round and if we can make the edge a bit steeper I hope we can try it again. A ha-ha would not be subject to the continued management the fences need and in my opinion look a lot nicer.

Wild Camping at Oily Hall

The fence is up, the ramp for the composting toilet is in and the foundations are in place. All we need to do now is build everything! Hopefully before Christmas we will get the cabins or pods constructed. It looks to be a pretty tall order though and plenty of hard work.

The Gates are in and we start work at Oily Hall

2011-11-21T15:41:00.000-08:00

Firstly we have brought in the gates from Tubney Fen. Now the cattle are off the gates are in for the winter to allow easier access for horse riders, it also means they can’t be stolen over the Winter. The plan is to get them back out a week or so before the cows are due back in May.

Down at Oily Hall, which is to the West of Lode, we have started constructing a Cattle Handling Unit. Me (John), Johnny, Johnny and Jason (it made it simple for Jason to get out attention) set about getting it started. Basically it is a big strong pen, the cattle are baited or run into it to catch them. When time and materials permit the plan is to have three layers of crash barriers to complete the fence, and to cut all the poles down to get it all neat and tidy. We used old telegraph poles, so the post certainly look strong enough!

Below is a picture of where we got to, and a picture of what we hope it to look like from a site nearby:

Other things on the go:

Jason has started to build the fence to surround the new wild camping site on Oily Hall. With a spot of luck the shelters or ‘pods’ will be constructed in mid December. The idea is that groups such as the Scouts or Guides can book them out and use them as a stopover, no need for a tent. Further work on Oily Hall includes Jason building a fence to divide the fields and possibly digging a small pond.

Owl and Harrier Spotting

2011-11-13T12:14:00.000-08:00

Harriers and Owls

As there have been some fantastic sightings of Owls and Harriers recently I thought I would share my favourite places to go and see them.

Number one is pretty simple, our Visitor Centre at Wicken. Clearly a good spot at any time but if you finish your walk for about 30 minutes before dusk and are near the Visitor Centre you have a great chance of spotting a Harrier or two, and possibly an Owl, mainly Barn Owls.

Number two is Harrisons Drove. I have always liked a wander down here at dusk and waiting to see if anything flies over head.

Number Three, Via Newnham Drove, heading from Burwell. This drove is in a bit of a state and you need a 4x4 really to get to the end where there isn’t any parking, just a few lay-bys. But the reasonably long, straight walk down from then end can be as fruitful as where the arrow points to at its end. I found myself here at the end of last Thursday and spotted four Short Eared Owls one flying right overhead. If you are on the lodes way this is a nice point to stop lean on the gate and take a nice break. Barn Owls andMarsh Harriers have both been spotted here recently by myself.

Number four. Reach Lode Bridge. There is a bit of hard standing here, Split Drove is in better condition than Newnham Drove, not ideal but I can take my little car down there no bother. Pop over the Bridge and see what you can.

The path around Burwell Fen via Reach Lode, Burwell Lode and the Lodes way makes a big triangle. This is well worth a wander, especially in the afternoon/evening as the sun goes down.

Here is another fantastic picture of a Short Eared Owl by Richard Nicoll.

Short Eared Owl

http://www.richardnicollphotography.co.uk/

Into a different part of the Reed Beds

2011-11-13T12:01:00.001-08:00

Out Mowing

Today we went and mowed the tracks around the reed beds, a job that hasn’t been done for a few years. We are getting in there before they become a really tough job to get back into order. Mind you they are overgrown and a bit of a labyrinth with plenty of sharp drops to avoid. Because of this James and Kate walked ahead through the deep grass and reed to show where the edges were and I drove at a breakneck speed of 0.5 mph. Listening to the Formula 1 on the radio gave a nice contrast to the super slow mowing.

The tracks are not just for access and to allow management of the area, their structure is important within the habitat as a whole. The reed beds at Wicken are pretty large at over 30 hectares, and contain a diverse range of species from the Reed Leopard Moth to the Bittern. The tracks allow for a larger amount of edge to the reeds and grasses, and in simple terms the diversity of the reed beds increases at the edges, so the more the better.

Below are some pictures taken today:

I should point out that the tracks are not for access into the reedbeds. So please don’t go hunting for them.

A gloomy day down the fen

2011-11-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

The autumn weather got a good look in today. We had a catch up day in the office, not because of the weather, but it was nice to avoid the drizzle. I spent the morning planning the tree planting on the Lode and Longmeadow Community Wood at White Fen and the fencing plans for Hurdle Hall along with all the usual paperwork.

The water at Tubney Fen has also been turned on. We have an abstraction licence that runs from November to March. Using a nice big metal ‘Key’ to open the valves the water runs through the old irrigation system and out to the mere. Gravity does the work and we keep meter readings to ensure we keep to our quota. Here is a picture of the mere just as the water started to go in.

Tim got the old Fen Lighter pulled out of Wicken Lode, which was a moment of excitement as there was a fear that that it could have snapped. But as you can see she made it out in one piece to be put on display. The replacement is due to be on the way soon.

Jason Cooper has been slubbing some of the ditches on the fen and finished the job off today with the last of two sections of Wicken Lode. Slubbing is carried out for several reasons. In terms of conservation it is used to limit the successional change of species within our ditches. If we left them unmanaged they would eventually fill in and for the majority or cases slowly revert to scrub/woodland. By clearing or ‘slubbing’ the ditches on varying time delays or ‘rotations’ we can allow differing levels of succession to take place. As a result we create numerous ecological niches to be exploited by nature, thereby varying the species that come to live within them. We clear ditches on rotations from between 2years-25years-no clearance. Another important use of slubbing is to allow for the passage of water through a watercourse.

Here is a video of Jason slubbing Wicken Lode. He leaves the rhizomes of the reeds on one side of the path and spreads the slub out evenly on the other. With a spot of luck it will have vegetated over by the end of spring and we can use that side track on the left of the path again.

Working in the Reed Beds

2011-11-07T11:08:00.000-08:00

No pictures today as there wasn’t really much time to take any. The day went as follows:

Get set up and then look at Reach Lode Bridge to see how the repairs to the surface looked.

Then chipping wood all day. There was a lot of wood chipping, a lot... and now I'm having chips for tea as well!

We are working down there to get the old Willows and scrub that surround the pools into a pollarding rotation. It will reduce the chances of the bigger trees falling into the pools or blocking the access we need down there. By leaving some of the larger trees we can maintain valuable dead wood habitat at various heights. Another important reason for reducing the height of the trees is to remove perches for predatory birds so near to the reed beds. We put some the chippings on Harrisons Drove to fill in a few of the muddy holes. Hopefully this will ease the path of people and mean they can get away with study shoes instead of sturdy boots!

Chips away again!

2011-11-02T14:12:00.001-07:00

Chipping and Chipping

More of the same but in a different place. We have been working to manage the plantation at Wicken Fen in a way that is great for our butterflies. This means widening the paths to get more light in and provide space to be populated by grasses The pollarding of some willows and altering the cutting regime will also provide a good early nectar source. Our Careership Warden, Tim, has been doing masses of work to decide on what is best to do down there. From daylight surveys to identifying as many of the plants as possible and mapping their locations to the all important butterfly transects to see what we have got.

Here is a before and after of some of the work we did two years ago:

And this is of today and a picture of from last year to show what we hope will happpen:

Habitat management in St Edmund's Fen

2011-11-01T11:27:00.001-07:00

We are working over time to alter the structure of the rides in St Edmonds Fen. It is part of the NNR, SSSI and so on that makes up the older part of Wicken Fen. It will be a slow process due to take several years because of the small seasonal window in which work can be carried out (between the end of the cutting season and the time of the water table rising).

We cut the scrub back with the help of work groups from Price Waterhouse Coopers and Anglian Water as well as some hard work from our volunteers and staff on the fen. This left us with a big pile to chip and move as well as the tree stumps that needed to be chainsawed out.

Before and after from today.

In the spirit of Halloween here is our motley crew of spooky pumpkins!

Cows and Owls

2011-10-30T12:29:00.001-07:00

The cows are leaving and the new locks are going out

The cows are due to be coming off Tubney Fen and Burwell Fen this week. As part of our environmental stewardship agreements the cows are removed over the winter and will come back in the spring. I will try to get the small gates removed to allow for easier access but this might take a bit of time I’m sorry to say. We have a busy two weeks on the Sedge Fen coming up. As I have a chipper and chainsaw licence I am booked to help with the large amount of tree work due to be carried out.

Owls on Burwell Fen

I'm delighted to say there have been some good sightings of Short Eared Owls on Burwell Fen. I was down there at about 4pm this afternoon and met a few people who had popped down to have a look. They reported seeing between four and six birds yesterday and we saw one close overhead. Barn Owls are also present in the area as well as Little Owls and Harriers. If you do fancy heading down to have a look please try not to disturb the barn. For the enjoyment of all please respect the birds and the other bird watchers.

Check out the following pictures of the owls taken by Richard J Nicoll

Short Eared Owl

Little Owl

Barn Owl

Where is it? It can be easily found on Google Maps by typing 'Newnham Drove Burwell'. Scroll a across to the left and you can see the barn. The bridge is at the end of Hightown Drove but is accessed via Split drove to the South of Reach Lode (take note though as Factory Drove is for some reason called Little Fen Drove on the map). Newnham Drove can be driven down but is in a bad state and to be honest I would avoid it. I have taken my car down there and there were a few bumps scrapes on the way! But don't be put off as it is well worth the trip.