Monday 3 June 2013

All change down the Fen

Our Senior Ranger has moved to a new job, and we are in the process of finding another. So there has been much work to be handed over and catching up to do as well as the farewells to say and the normal spring work.  I haven’t blogged for a while as much of the work related to this and in general for the spring has led me to be sitting at my computer, which I normally don’t write about as, well, it can be less than thrilling. But what is it? It mostly relates to contractors coming on site, for example weed control and fencing. Risk assessments, codes of conduct, training and proficiency certifications, approved access routes and work areas, as well as setting up companies as suppliers in the first place, and making sure that we are paying our contractors and suppliers correctly and promptly, getting quotes, writing work specifications and tenders and so on. So all important stuff to allow for our conservation work to take place, but time consuming, especially if it is a new task being carried out. 

As the birds are nesting we can’t do any tree work, or face up any of our scrub, the plants are still growing on the Fen and we need to wait for later in the summer to cut them, and the fen is still too wet to travel on in many places so we put our efforts into repairing things like our boardwalk sections, tidying up our fire site and most importantly cutting the grass on our paths, picnic areas and access points.

The latest big change on the Fen is in relation to grazing, our own cattle have moved onto Burwell Fen. Hopefully I will get a minute to write a bit more about this later in the week, along with a bit of an update about our weed spraying.

As usual here are a few pics and keep an eye out for me on Twitter @vision_warden





No comments:

Post a Comment