Summer & autumn all at once
Our volunteers do a range of tasks throughout the year, when it comes to July everyone knows that there's one job that needs to be done and that's hay cutting, And we have a lot of it to do in order to keep our wild flower meadows in the best condition, which means as well as cutting the grass we also have to rake it all up and move it off the meadow, quite a task in the heat. Grass snakes should benefit from the hay piles that you find around the reserve and it keeps the meadows poor in nutrients which encourages more wild flowers.
With summer holidays and accompanying good weather our family events programme has been busy. Families have joined the education team to find out about butterflies and the Big Butterfly Count, investigate the invertebrates in the pond and rummage around the woodland on a nature ramble. Children and adults have been able to have fun and learn together at the same time, taking time to wander slowly and really look around at the tiny treasures of wildlife that inhabit our nature reserve here at Tophill. Bookings for the next academic year are now being taken so anyone involved in the primary sector can head to our website at https://www.yorkshirewater.com/education/teachers/availability-booking/ to book their FREE school visit. A great chance to look at the water cycle, local flora and fauna, adaptations and classification; all part of the science national curriculum and all covered in our sessions.
RSPB Bempton cliffs is a popular destination for holiday makers visiting the area and wanting to view the seabirds. In order to keep the interest of the general public who visit, once the seabirds have left then each year they have a "Wild Event" to showcase other wildlife. As one of our partners in the area we were pleased to head there and promote the reserve and its wildlife and encourage more visitors who may want to explore the brilliant wildlife sites that East Yorkshire has to offer.
Even though we consider the months of July and August to be summer in the natural world, autumn has already started and birds are beginning to move south from their breeding grounds and head to their winter feeding areas. The screaming parties of swifts, a regular sight on lovely summer evenings as they fly through the streets hunting insects, have all but disappeared, their stay here in the UK being very short lived. Swallows, house martins and sand martins are gathering on the roof tops and wires, ready for their journeys south, often feeding over the reservoirs where freshwater invertebrates continue to emerge as adult flies, juicy meals for hungry migratory birds.
Elsewhere on the reserve, on the southern marshes, passing waders are dropping in to feed on the exposed mud, fuelling up for their own migratory journeys. The marsh has never looked so good to these passage waders and its all down to how they have been managed in recent years so that conditions are optimal to attract wading birds to visit and feed before moving on.
A big thanks to our volunteer team who have helped keep the marsh an area of open water. The team has done this by strimming the margins to keep down brambles and sprayed the reed mace and phragmites to also keep the margins clear. This allows birds flying overhead better sightlines to see the marsh. The pollarding of the nearby willow, ash and hazel has removed many predator perches, enabling a safer feeding area for waders. Pollarding also encouraging more song birds, which prefer nesting in the lower canopies that pollarding creates. The gravel islands have been washed in previous years to rid them of organic material that encourages vegetation, keeping them clear for nesting common terns and black headed gulls.
The herd of
goats manages the grassland areas for us, grazing the banks down, again
improving the sightlines for the wader. The water in the marsh is continually being
replenished from the water treatment process, as no one wants invertebrates in
their drinking water, so after being filtered out they end up in south marsh
and become wader food as it is full of daphnia and other invertebrates. It is important to keep the water flowing in
and out of the marsh by clearing the ditches, another task carried out by the
volunteer team and we can slowly alter the water level by management of sluices. Overall, the management makes a perfect stopover for these
passage waders.
The species that we have had in the last few weeks are
dunlin, black tailed godwit, green and common sandpiper, snipe, lapwing,
curlew, ruff, avocet, little and great white egret, redshank, golden plover and
ringed plover. Quite a variety and coming close to the hides for good views for
visitors, so please come down and have a look for yourself.
Another highlight recently, on 2nd August, was the arrival of a Caspian tern, believed to be the second record for the reserve. It was initially observed by a couple of visitors feeding over D reservoir. It was later picked up resting on south marsh and was seen by a number of people before it left later that evening. The largest tern in the world and only a few records each autumn in the UK, it was a very good record for Tophill, only a shame that it didn't linger so that others could come to see it.
