Thursday 26 June 2014

More Babies and New Dipwells

We shall kick off today with the new arrivals at the fen. Firstly we have Splat, Meg's first little boy. You may be able to guess why he is called Splat when you look at the large white patch spread across the middle of his head! Bellow that we have Apple, Gale's new little girl calf. She is nearly two weeks old now and has been named Apple after her Grandmother's and her mother's fondness for apples. 

Young Splat with mum Meg

Baby Apple

And with mum Gale keeping close watch
Ruby, John and Pete have been installing new dip wells out on Verrall's Fen. They have grand plans to replace three and create 9 new ones. They replaced 2 new ones on Friday, and put in a whole new one. They have also built some extra protection around them as the Ponies and Cattle like to scratch on the poles and break them.  The dip wells are how we monitor the water levels around the fen. They are a 3m pipe, with 2m below ground, and we literally just measure how far down the pipe the water is. We have also gone more technical by adding soil moisture tubes, which will help us to correlate the water levels with how the water is moving through the soil.

Pete and John discussing how to get the tubes in
And just like magic, its done!

I went to the Cambridge Conservation Forum Symposium yesterday, which was focused on Ecological Restoration. It was fascinating, and we heard from lots of speakers, including case studies from Lakenheath and the Great Fen Project. It was a good chance for me to catch up with people from all parts of the conservation sector and it was great to hear all the positive work going on, although it was highlighted that more could be done, particularly convincing governments how important this work is.











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