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.

Wonderful Wetland Winter Walk

On the 29th December 2019 we held our annual winter walk around the fens. Luckily the flood waters of the previous week had receded enough that we could get around the sites and enjoy the walk. Over 50 people and a few dogs joined us for a very informative and interesting walk around the fens, visiting New Fen and Reeves Meadows. After the walk people returned back to the recently refurbished Thelnetham Village Hall, where LOHP and Thelnetham Parish Council's volunteers had been hard at work only days before removing mud from the car park and cleaning chairs in readiness for our arrival - where we were greeted with tea, coffee and hot soup - well deserved after a morning

stroll.

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.