Wetland Work

Saturday, November 9th 2024

The recent mild weather has helped to extend our season for wetland work at Foxglove Covert. Ideally work in ponds needs to be finished before the weather gets colder and amphibians begin to hibernate. As you can see, stands of reedmace around our wetland have become very dense over the years - so we've attempted to create a reasonable amount of open water, using our most veratile of tools - the scythe. (In the photo Alison, our dragonfly specialist is keeping a very close eye on proceedings!)

Faced with the usual habitat management issue of trying to do as little damage to wildlife as possible, while still achieving the objective, we wanted to avoid heavy or powered machinery. Inspiration came through a tool which is still used in parts of Norfolk - the maig - https://scytheassociation.org/maig-the-sub-aqua-scythe/. While we don't have a maig, we have plenty of scythes and some chest waders too!

After a couple of hours of work, a large amount of reedmace had been cut and cromed (raked) out of the pond, resulting in around a fifth of the vegetation being removed.

Cutting right at the base of the plant helps to prevent rapid regrowth, effectively drowning the reedmace and encouraging the root to rot. Cut material is floated to the edge of the pond and then drawn just up onto the bank, allowing any water invertebrates the chance to make their way back into the waterbody. It's best to leave any cut material in place at least 48 hours before removing it.

Henry did a sterling job of raking out a huge amount of heavy, waterlogged reedmace - while making some new friends along the way!

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