More Wetland Maintenance

The Foxglove team have been back on the wetland this week and what a difference they have made! The view from the hide has been completely transformed after the removal of more vegetation from the banks and islands. Ideally, this area would be grazed but this delicate series of ponds would not be able to cope with heavy livestock which means that looking after this habitat is very labour intensive.

The first job was to finish locating and marking up the dams and pipes. These are now clear to see and will make life a lot easier for contractors later in the year when they come to carry out important strengthening of the main banks.The yellow flowers in this picture are Sow Thistles which have been left for now.

On Tuesday scrub and coarse rushes were cut and raked up allowing the pools to become clearly defined again.

Tonne sacks were used to drag the cuttings away.

Some of the seed heads were removed from Reed Mace (Bullrushes) to prevent this plant from spreading even more and completely taking over!

Thistles were also pulled out before they had a chance to set seed.

Moving about between ponds was quite a challenge with some of the water being above 'welly' height!

Time lapse photography would have been interesting as people busied about cutting, raking and dragging sacks!

It has been a tough few days in all kinds of weather conditions but the difference is incredible and we promise to do something else next week!