More Rain and Wind - February 2020

It seems to be a constant stream of wind and rain at the moment, with the odd sunny day thrown in for good measure. The wind has brought down quite a few trees across LOHP sites which volunteers have had to clear up to keep paths open. On New Fen several ash trees came over which had ash dieback (see image). All this water is great news for the wetlands but unfortunately the constant rainfall has also increased river levels leading to flooding to some of our sites, the water from the river brings with it lots of silt and nutrients which can be detrimental to the species rich fens.

Happy New Year - Is the wet weather behind us? - 7th January 2020

I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year, I hope you all had a restful festive period. After the long dry summer and damp autumn, we suddenly had the most rain we had seen in a while. At the end of December just before Christmas we had an unexpected downpour overnight and were greeted with a rather different looking fen.

New Fen looking very different to what it did in the autumn when you could walk across it without your wellies on. Now you can't tell where the boundary of the site is. It’s a good job we managed to remove all the cut vegetation before we got all this rain, or it would have probably floated off around the site and be much harder to remove.

10 points if you can guess where this is?

Amazingly this is the Little Ouse running past Bleyswycks Bank (looking west) which for most of the spring and summer had been at its lowest level. But now you can hardly work out where the river, path and grassland start. The posts in the picture are the tops of the electric fence posts that run the length of Parkers Piece and Bleyswycks Bank. The cows were a little bit delayed coming off the site this year but luckily they left the week before the flood, we had even been organised enough to bring in the electric fence battery as well which was a good job as the box had become submerged with water.

While the gulls on Carr Meadow were having a lovely time. Others were struggling trying to cross the ford at Blo' Norton due to the raised water levels. Thanks to Rowena Langston who was out and about taking lots of photos.

Wildflowers make a come back at New Fen

A wonderful display of wildflowers can be seen on New Fen this year as the fen plants start to make a come back. New Fen had lost its fen habitat as it became colonised by trees, last year we set about removing them with many a volunteer task spent clearing vegetation.

Once the trees were gone a sea of nettles and thistles developed but with careful management these are now making way for some of the once lost fen plants. This is only the beginning we have a long way to go to match Thelnetham Fen next door, but we are well on our way. Next step will be to cut the fen vegetation once it has stopped flowering, this is a big job if you want to come along and lend a hand please get in touch with our Conservation Manager Ellie Beach ellie.beach@lohp.org.uk