Stodmarsh NNR – Management News

Stodmarsh NNR Winter 2008/09 Management News

Have you seen the Rhino at Stodmarsh?
Rhino Plant (the excavator company) completed planned management works on the grazing marsh at Grove and in front of the Marsh Hide before Christmas that has several benefits. To give the rare ditch plants as much chance as possible to thrive we have removed some scrub (bushes and bramble) from the ditch edges as it creates shade that the ditch plants can’t tolerate. This also makes the ditches better for many animals like water voles and dragonflies. In addition the scrub acts as perches for bird nest predators such as crows and magpies. The presence of scrub alone is enough to discourage lapwings and redshanks from nesting! Many wintering and breeding grazing marsh birds like to be able to see predators coming and the scrub means they can’t. The scrub has only been removed from these high priority areas so there is still plenty across the site for other species. We still have to burn the piles of scrub which will keep Robin and volunteers busy for the next few months. In addition to the scrub removal, we have cleaned out some ditches, created some additional rills in the fields (shallow open water features that many birds love) as in the photo, enhanced the open water in front of the Harrison’s Drove Hide and fixed a leaking sluice.
Nature Trail – Welcome to the Wildside.
As part of our Heritage Lottery project – Welcome to the Wildside, we have had the car park at Stodmarsh resurfaced and the trail from the car park raised and surfaced, to reduce periodic path flooding and make it more accessible. We also managed to find a little more money to regrade the track down to the Reedbed Hide, fix the access into the hide for wheelchairs and get the door to close properly. We had a second big volunteer day out with a local company Roots deciding to have a different type of Christmas meal with a barbeque and boardwalk construction day. The boardwalk from the alder wood to the Lampen Wall is now virtually complete. Thank you Roots and everyone else who helped out. Christina and Emma who run the project are working on a number of other things as part of the project including new information panels which will hopefully be installed in the next few months. Planned work for remainder of the winter in 2009.
We have just let another contract for some excavator work in the reedbed at the Stodmarsh end of the reserve. This will include some scrub removal, culvert repairs (a ditch crossing with a pipe in it to allow water to flow through) and hopefully some reed cutting. Scrub encroachment is an ongoing issue in the reedbed, with willow continually seeding in. If we allowed things to proceed without management we would get a lot of wet woodland and lose all those reedbed speciality species such a bittern, marsh harrier, bearded reedling and a wide range of moths. An excavator is a very effective way to remove the willows as they can be dug up roots and all and you get no regrowth. Culverts are very important – we need a free flow of water through the ditches, but at key places we need to be able to cross certain ditches to allow us access for work. Reed cutting gives us a varied age structure in the reedbed and following a cut you get more vigorous growth of the reed and a better seed head for bearded reedlings. Reed cutting is also important for bitterns in keeping the litter (accumulating dead reed) down in the bottom of the reedbed, which allows fish in for them to feed on. We have also got our own reed cutting equipment out and done a little cutting which has been a new experience for Robin and if we get further suitable weather will do some more before we raise the water levels again in the reedbed in mid February. The other big news for the reserve is we are involved in a research project on reedbeds. Natural England awarded a series of biodiversity grants to various voluntary bodies, this included one for RSPB for work on reedbeds. We were not allowed to apply for this money internally so we were very pleased when Stodmarsh was chosen to be part of the project. We will be working with RSPB staff at the Lodge and their Ham Wall Reserve and other partners at Wicken Fen (National Trust), Hickling Broad (Norfolk Wildlife Trust) and Far Ings (Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust) over the next few years on this. We have already had some electro-fishing done including down at Grove where we had no previous information on fish populations. All of the resulting information will allow us to fine tune our management of the reedbeds at Stodmarsh and maximise the site potential as well as the whole project giving cutting edge management details to other land owners and site managers.

Dave Rogers – Senior Reserves Manager

Robin Hanson – Reserve Manager Stodmarsh