Reach 24 Bioblitz

Last Saturday evening, anyone passing Reach 24 Acres may have been slightly confused by all the activity on the site. At 8 o’clock we started to track down as many different species as possible on the site before lunch time on Sunday.

Reach 24 Acres is a parcel of land on the edge of the village of Reach. The National Trust purchased it as part of the Wicken Fen Vision Project in 2011. The front 12 acres is being leased to the Reach community, who have created a steering group to drive the village’s ideas for the site. The aim is that the area will be used by local people as an area to enjoy being outdoors. They have already established a cricket pitch which they use for matches against other local village teams, planted an orchard made up of old native apple, pear and plum breeds, and have also planted a woodland that should develop nicely over the next few years. There is also a horse ménage being planned for riders to be able to stop at on other routes towards Reach Lode.

The Bioblitz was an exciting opportunity to get some baseline species data for this site, as well as getting people out looking for wildlife on their local patch. Saturday evening started off with setting out small mammal traps in the orchard and down some of the paths ready to be checked the next morning. Then John Rawle arrived to help us track down some bats. We had to waiting a little while and wander down closer to the village to hear anything on our bat detectors, but we saw a good amount of pipistrelles and then by the time we got back to Reach 24 we managed to hear one on site so it could be recorded as our first mammal species. By this time, Bill Mansfield had set up some moth traps and they were coming in thick and fast. By the end of the night, and after a few close encounters with the macro moths, we had recorded 48 moth species, including a Reed Lepoard Moth (Phragmataecia castaneae) which are nationally scarce. 

We were then up early to check the mammal traps, and we found 3 common shrews (Sorex araneus), one of which was a very pregnant female shrew. There was no rest from then on as we hunted down birds, bugs and butterflies through the morning. We then finished with a wander around the site checking off all the plant species we could identify. By Sunday lunch time, the species count had reached 231. Some more results have come in since, as some of the experts took some insects away to have a closer look at and we are now at 291 species!

Thank you to all the experts who came and shared their knowledge, and to everyone who came along to have a good time too.

Filling up the Longworth traps with food and bedding



Setting out the mammal traps in the Orchard

Listening out for bats at sunset

Watching for moths

A Small Magpie moth (Anania hortulata)

A grumpy looking Ghost moth (Hepialus humuli)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes the wildlife was just begging to be counted, like this brown slug (Deroceras reticulatum) found on someone's boot!

One of the Shrews (Sorex araneus) caught in the Longworths

Bug hunting

How ever big or small we were counting it!

A golden-bloomed grey longhorn beetle ( Agapanthia villosoviridescens)

 

Basecamp where all findings were recorded

 

Sweeping for butterflies

There were lots of Meadow Browns (Miniola jurtina)

And a Comma (Polygonum c-album)

 

And this fuzzy fella is a Ruby Tiger (Phragmatobia fuliginosa)

Scarlet Pipernel (Anagallis arvensis)

 

 

And I can't remember what plant this was but it had a nifty trick of its leaves following the sun as the day went on.

 

 

 

The total at the end of the day, which has now exceeded 290.

 

 

 

 

 

Spring Arrivals

As the weather warms up and the  clocks go forwards we're all starting to see and hear the signs of spring around Wicken Fen. The flowering plants are just starting to peak out, braving some of the early morning frosts we've been having recently. Primroses are popping up in Gutter Bridge Wood, while celandines are appearing all over the paths at the Fen. the hedgerows are also coming into blossom as the hawthorn as their little white flowers come into bloom.


These early flowering plants are an important food source for many of the first pollinators that are also starting to appear. I saw my first butterfly of the year last Saturday, a Peacock out on Burwell Fen, and as I've been writing this blog a male Brimestone has fluttered past our office window. My first Bumblebee sighting beat the butterflies by a matter of days, again on Burwell Fen, but as I was driving a tractor at the time I couldn't watch it for long enough to identify the species.


The annual Ranger bird spotting competition has started, seeing who can spot the migrating bird species first. Carol already has Chiff Chaffs and Grasshopper Warblers under her belt, while Alan spotted the first Swallows this morning. I don't like this game, mostly because I'm no good at it, but it does get you thinking about looking up and listening out while out doing work around the fen. Sedge and Reed warblers have also been heard but the rules state that you have to see it to claim first spotted so we'll all be watching the ditches carefully over the next week.


We're also expecting the arrival of some cuckoos imminently. We have started to follow the BTO's tracked cuckoos on their website. It an exciting race to see which of the seven will make it to Britain first, two having taken the lead by crossing the Sahara first. I'm rooting for Stanley who appears to be the only one who spent anytime in East Anglia last year.


Our resident birds are also gearing up for spring. The bitterns can be heard booming from the reedbed, and the males will continue to boom until they find a mate for the summer. Snipe can also be heard drumming at the moment, a very weird wound when you first hear it, but one you'll never forget once you know what it is.

Not to be out done by the rest of the wildlife the Koniks and Highlands have also been getting in on the spring action. We've had three new foals in the last few weeks, all girls call Bela, Hinny and Merrylegs. Our foal naming theme for the year is horses from books, though some of them are slightly obscure! They have all been born into the same family group to experienced mums, Nanja, Kaluna and Yara.

Hinny and Bela with mums Kaluna and Nanja

Gale is the first cow to calf this year, and has had a little boy. He's her first bull calf, though she has had two little girls in the last two years. As cows tend to do, she is keeping him away from the herd until he's a little surer on his legs, but Apple and Raven, Gale's previous calves, have joined her. They make a lovely family picture on the fen looking after little bro while mum has a bite to eat.


We've called him Winfrid, after Sir Norman Winfrid Moore, who died at the end of last year. He was on the Wicken Fen committee for many years and was an incredibly valuable source of knowledge. He had a huge impact on the ecological science, most notably discovering the impact of DDT pesticides on food chains and top predators.

Baby Winfrid soon after birth

 

and with mum Gale the next day

 

Wicken Winter Highlights

Since the start of the year, the Rangers have been cracking on with lots of odd jobs around the Fen. We've carried on pollarding in North Field, which we started before Christmas, and we've started lots of fence repairs that need to happen before the Livestock come back to Tubney, Hurdle Hall and Oily Hall in the Spring.

While we've been out all over the reserve, we have been enjoying all the wildlife that can only be seen in the winter. Of particular note are the Short Eared Owls (Asio flammeus) on Burwell Fen. The rangers who check the livestock are usually lucky enough to see these lovely birds every time they go to Burwell at this time of year. These owls can be found in the UK all year round, but only come to the Fen in the winter. Though some Short Eared Owls breed in Northern England and Scotland, the birds in East Anglia have probably migrated here from Scandinavia, Russia and Iceland.  They are most often seen hunting during the day at Burwell Fen, looking for small mammals to have for supper, most probably field voles. If you pop over to Burwell for a look, also keep an eye out for Brown Hares (Lepus europaeus. Hares are on Burwell all year round, it's just slightly easier to see them at this time of the year when the grass sward is slightly lower. They don't burrow like rabbits, instead they hunker down in the longer grass tussocks, relying on their speed to escape from predators if they're flushed up. Its also coming up to Hare boxing season. It's the time of year when males get particularly frisky and the females literally have to bat them away, stand up on their hinds legs batting at their amorous opponent with their front legs. This behaviour is normally seen around March time, hence the expression "mad as a march hare".

If your headed for a day out from the Visitor's Centre don't worry, not all the wildlife action is on Burwell Fen. Field fares (Turdus pilaris) can often be seen in the hedges and scrub around the boardwalk, and look out for Redwings (Turdus iliacus) also hiding away in those flocks. If you hang around the Visitor Centre at sunset you may also see Hen Harriers (Circus cyaneus) coming into roost for the night. Hen Harriers only spend the winter at Wicken Fen, preferring to go to the Northern parts of the UK to breed on upland heather moorland. These harriers are very rare in the UK, and in 2014 there were only 4 breeding pairs. We are very lucky to see at least three at the Fen every evening. The grey males are a beautiful sight to see soaring over the sedge fen scoping out a good place to bed down for the night.

Our two long term Ranger Volunteers have been taking advantage on their on site accommodation to go out wildlife watching during the dusky hours. Below is Alex's account of the Burwell Fen Starling murmuration they witnessed a week or so ago:

That season has arrived again. It is time for the starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) to start collecting together and roosting on the fen. Over the past few weeks an estimated 20,000 to 35,000 starlings have been providing a stunning murmuration spectacle over Burwell fen. A few days ago two of our long term volunteer rangers headed down to the reed bed by the concrete bridge in an attempt to experience the fantastic display. Widespread and resident in the UK throughout the year, starlings are still considered one of the commonest garden birds feeding on insects and fruit. The reason for the mass aerial stunt is widely speculated. Many believe starlings group together as it offers safety in numbers against predators such as peregrine falcons Falco peregrines. Starlings gather at their roosting site to keep warm at night and to swap knowledge, such as good feeding sites. 

Other wildlife sightings that night included Mute Swan Cygnus olor, Marsh harrier Circus aeruginosus, Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo, c200 Lapwing Vanellus vanellus, Roe Deer Capreolus capreolus, c50 Jackdaw Corvus monedula, Barn owl Tyto alba, Short eared Owl Asio flammeus.

Mostly Pollarding with some added Cranes

As the festive season draws nearer and everyone at Wicken is getting into the Christmas spirit, the Fen outside is feeling unseasonably warm.We had to mow the grass around the picnic tables near the cafe last week, a job we're normally finished with at the end of October. The odd queen wasp has been spotted, very sleepy and confused having been woken up by the warm weather. We have even spotted a snowdrop in bloom, which doesn't normally happen until late January to February time.

The warmer weather does mean that we Rangers have no excuse to not head out to work on the Fen. We have been working at getting a small area of scruby woodland back into a four year pollarding rotation. Pollarding is when you cut the branches off the a tree, normally at around shoulder height, which will stop livestock or deer eating the new shoots as they grow. By cutting one section every year, we are hoping to create structural diversity within the wooded area, the more diversity in the structure, the more habitats we create and the more species that can live there. By implementing this management scheme there should always be a variety of tree ages within the wood, which will be used by different species. When the section has just been pollarded, the canopy will be opened up to let more light in, helping flowering plants to grow in the glades and along the rides. By having plants such ox eye daisies, birds-foot trefoil and white clover there's lots of food plants for insects, bees and butterflies including Common Blues (Polyommatus icarus). There's also plenty of butterflies that will enjoy the long grasses in these areas, such as Gate Keepers (Pyronia tithonus), Small Skippers (Thymelicus sylvestris) and Speckled Woods (Pararge aegeria) whose catterpillars all feed on grasses such as Yorkshire Fog and False Brome. Brimstones ( Gonepteryx rhamni) will then use the Buckthorn  trees for their caterpillars. Once the trees have grown again from the stumps they form a canopy again, which provides lots of places for birds to nest. It also makes lots of aerial runways for small mammals to travel along, particularly when bramble has also grown up as this also provides a good food source for the mammals and birds.

There was great excitement around the fen on Wednesday morning when 16 cranes flew over the visitor's centre. There are estimated to be around 75 cranes (Grus grus) resident in the UK, with 9-14 breeding pairs and then a few more visiting from the continent in the winter. Breeding cranes are thought to have become extinct in this country around 400 years ago, with some still visiting over the winter since. In the 70s some of these visitors decided to stay and breed one summer in the Norfolk Broads. The population has been growing slowly since then, and the cranes have been spreading their territories, including two breeding pairs fledging young at Lakenheath Fen this year. There is also a breeding program in Somerset called the Great Crane Project, that has been very successful at releasing hand reared birds to create a stable population in the South West. All our native cranes are watched and monitored closely, and they can all be individually identified by the colour and size of their bustles (the long feathers that look like a tail, but are actually the tertial feathers on the wings). The Cambridge Bird Group website (http://www.cambridgebirdclub.org.uk/research.html) has lots of interesting info about which birds have been seen where, and where they think they've come from.
John managed to get a quick video of the 16 cranes flying over which can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPKtckaRQ2M


I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and a fabulous New Year!

Scrub Clearance and Winter's Arrival

As winter has arrived, the Rangers have been donning their chainsaw kits and heading out onto the fen. We're clearing a section of scrub along Spinney Bank, the path along the west side of the Sedge fen. This section of the Nature Trail has scrub on both sides of the path, leaving it in shadow for most of the day all year round. We've been having some troubles with how wet the nature trail gets and this spot in particular becomes impassable much quicker than the rest of the trail. We have been combating that by putting out movable duck boards. This serves to protect not only our visitors shoes, but the peat they are walking over too.

By clearing the scrub from one side of the path we're hoping to open it up to the sun a bit more, so that it may stay drier for longer, and we wont have to use duck boards for the whole of the summer again, like we had to this year. The side we're clearing is also the side closest to the ditch, which is also a good thing as we're clearing some of the potential blockages from this ditch.

Luke and Phil after clearing their section in the scrub

On the first day of work four Rangers qualified to use a chainsaw went down to the site, with a team of volunteers to drag away and pile up the trees we cut down. We couldn't, however, start on the scrub on the ditch side of the path as we had nowhere to put the downed trees. So we set about making some hidden holes in the scrub on the other side of the path. We created narrow entrances of about 2m, to allow members of the team to gain entry to the area and then swept out to create a wide mushroom shaped space to fill with the cut down scrub. We then piled the trees from this space around the edges of the wide areas to make room for the rest.

Once this was finished the clearing on the ditch side of the path could begin. It has taken the team about 5 days to cut down and drag away all the scrub from this section. It can be a fun job, seeing how much you can plough through in a day and with a few of you on a team there's lots of people to talk to. At other times. though, with rain howling down and having to wear ear defenders while the chainsaws are running, it can be hard work. The volunteers, lead by Luke have done a fantastic job, and there's only some stumps left to be sorted, but the trees are all gone.

Elsewhere on the fen, we're starting to get ready for Christmas. The cycle path along from the Visitor's Centre to Norman's Bridge has had new drainage installed, so it shouldn't flood as quickly in the rain. Its also had a new surface rolled on top so it's looking ideal for a crisp winter bike ride.

New Drainage being put next to the cycle path

The lovely looking new cycle path

The Education team are getting things ready for Father Christmas' arrival at Fen Cottage. The Ranger team help out by bringing back any silver birch trees we've felled during scrub clearance as they make very pretty Christmas trees.

The winter migrant birds are coming in thick and fast now as well. Short Eared Owls are back on Burwell, Fieldfares and the odd Red Wing can be seen from the back of the Visitor's Centre. Our last WeBS count on Burwell Fen (wetland birds survey) recorded 2468 birds of 17 different species in just over an hour. Over 1000 Lawings, 850 Golden Plovers, around 100 Shovellers and 136 Wigeon. And they're just the big numbers! The Hen Harriers have also made a return to the Fen, with four seen regularly over the Sedge Fen just before sunset.

The Cutting Season Starts

If you follow the Wicken Fen Twitter account (@WickenFenNT) you will have noticed a lot of pictures of tractors. We have started the annual cut of the droves over the last couple of weeks. Where the ground is dry enough, this means a team of three tractors heading out onto the droves.

Clearing the end of Gardiner's Drove next to the Wind pump

Firstly a small light tractor heads out with a disk mower, slicing through the vegetation at the bottom of their stems. Unlike a flail mower, or a garden lawn mower, it doesn't mulch the cuttings so we can leave them to dry on ground over night. Then, the next morning the second tractor heads out. this could either be our old Massey Ferguson 35 with an acrobat on the back, or a slightly more modern Kubota  tractor with a PTO driven hay-bob on. These do the same job of turning the cuttings. This knocks a lot of the seeds out, creating a good seed bank for next spring, and also pulls the cuttings into rows ready for the next stage of clearing. The final tractor then comes along and pushes all the cuttings into a large pile called a Duffy pile.

The hay-bob

The Hay-bob in action, rowing up the cuttings

A tractor-eye view

One cleared drove, with the last pile waiting to be taken away

The rows get pushed away by the buck rake

We cut the full width (5-10m) of the droves once a year. This is for two reasons. Firstly to keep access to the fen open, and secondly to maintain the high biodiversity of the drove edges, with some species that only occur in these areas. The orchids that grow around the nature trail most commonly Early Marsh and Common Spotted (and hybrids of these) are mostly found down the droves. There are also a wide range of flowering plants that get out competed in the denser sedge fields. Such plants as Ragged Robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi), Water Mint (Mentha aquatica) and Yellow Rattle (Rhynanthous minor) are a common sight over the spring and summer, which creates and large bank of food plants for a wide variety of insect life.

This week, however, it has started to rain. This has made things a bit trickier. One of the most important considerations we have while doing the tractor work, is whether we are causing too much ground damage while working. Wet ground conditions caused by the recent weather makes damaging the ground more likely, so we have had to stop taking the tractors out to do the work. This is where some of our hard working volunteers come in. We have been using brush-cutters and a ride-on mower to cut some parts of the drove, then raking the cuttings into piles, which are moved by hand into the scrub boundaries. The team have been great at really motivating themselves to get out onto the fen and get the job done, and it is a good job to really see the progress you've made in a day.

The wettest sections are being cleared by hand. 

 All the hard work pays off though. We were reminded how lucky we are to work at such a fabulous site last week when we could pop out if the office to watch a large flock of Bearded Tits feeding in the reeds along the board walk right next to the visitor centre.

Joan Childs managed to snap this lovely photo of them. 

Buzz and Lark go off to Scotland

One early morning in the middle of August, a team of bleary eyed rangers waved off two of our Konik Ponies as they set off on a journey up to Scotland.

Buzzard (Buzz for short) and Lark are two yearling, male Koniks that were born at Wicken Fen. They started life out on Baker's Fen, and were part of the herd that were moved over to Burwell Fen last summer. All of the other males in that group were either castrated or vasectomised, to stop any further breeding in that herd. Buzz and Lark were too young to have this done however as their testicles had not yet descended. This meant that this summer they started to show interest in the mares in the herd, which presented the rangers with a situation. We had two choices to keep the herd non-breeding, either castrate these two boys, or move them out of the herd.

Luckily we had been contacted by the Wardens from the RSPB at the Loch of Strathberg asking whether we could sell them some Konik Ponies to help with their breeding herd of horses. Buzz and Lark were ideal, young enough that them leaving our herd wouldn't affect the hierarchy and social dynamics to much, but old enough to be able to stand their ground and earn a new position in a new herd in Scotland.

We then had to prepare Buzz and Lark for the journey. Once Stan and his little herd had vacated the hospital paddock near the Visitor's Centre, we moved Buzz and Lark in, about a month before they were due to leave. The vet came in to help with this move, sedating them to keep them clam for the short journey from Burwell Fen. Once they were at the paddock we could spend more time with them, getting them used to people being around more often than they saw on Burwell Fen. We also introduced them to a new food, a minty lick, so we could use it as a tasty treat to tempt them to go where we wanted. Our herds don't recognise many foods that domestic horses go wild for as they have never experience anything but grass so it can take a while for them to work up the courage to try new foods. As young boys though, Buzz and Lark are particularly curious, so soon discovered how yummy the licks were. This meant we could call them over to a corral every morning, getting them used to walking in and out of the structure, where they got a little treat.

Using the minty licks to try and convince the boys trailers aren't all that bad

Buzz was convinced, but lark not so much. 

Sometimes you can have the head in the trailer, but the back legs are not moving any closer!

The morning of the big move arrived and as the horses were being picked up at 7am, the rangers had to be at work even earlier to get them ready to go. This meant calling them over to the corral, shutting all the doors behind them before they noticed and then loading them into our trailer ready to be transferred to the larger transport vehicle. The work over the past month must have paid off as we managed to get his all done in about an hour and we pulled up into the car park with the horses, at the same time as the transport guys pulled up. After some fiddly reversing to get our trailers bum to bum, we opened up the doors and pushed Buzz and Lark over into the more comfortable trailer for the long journey.

Peering out for his last look at Wicken. 

Sussing out the new trailer

 Buzz and Lark had an over night stop on the way up to Scotland and arrived the next evening at the Loch of Strathberg. They are doing well and are getting used to their new home before being introduced to the mares in a few weeks.

Bye bye boys!