Spring arrives at Tophill

 

Winter months are the time when the reserve team and the group of volunteers are the busiest when it comes to habitat management. Once mid March passes, birds start to nest and habitats cannot be disturbed. Visitors will see a range of habitat management tasks being completed as they walk around.

One such task was the cleaning and revamping of the tern rafts and nesting islands on south marsh east, which were first installed several years ago. During subsequent years, the original gravel has been colonised by vegetation precluding terns from nesting and as this species has been increasing in numbers in recent years, we’ve wanted them to continue to be successful breeders. Washing out all the vegetation and replacing with new gravel has taken hours of volunteer time, let’s hope that the common terns return this season. As well as our own tern islands, Yorkshire Water has funded the tern islands at Dumble Farm and Albanwise Farm further down the Hull valley.

Another new addition that visitors will notice on arrival at the reserve is the newly installed biosecurity washdown facility. Yorkshire Water takes invasive non native species very seriously as in the wider business this can lead to increase in costs to remove certain species from operational sites. As visitors and our reserve team move between nature reserves it is of vital importance that people do not carry with them, particularly on footwear and machinery, any trace of invasive non native plants such as Himalayan balsam or New Zealand Pygmy weed (often referred to as Crassula). Visitors can now scrub their boots on arrival and departure to make sure they are clean between visiting other sites. As a reserve team we can clean equipment in the new facility when moving between sites, making sure that Tophill Low remains free of these non native invasive species. Recently, the team arrived back from a tree planting project at our Cottingham water treatment site and made good use of the new facility.

Over in Cottingham the reserve volunteer team have been helped out by local volunteers to take part in tree planting. The site will become one of the area’s largest woodlands, as over 38,000 trees, of 23 different species, covering an area of approximately 25 hectares has been planted on Yorkshire Water land. An exciting project that the local community were keen to be involved in.

We also needed some trees planting here at the reserve as some oak saplings that were grown from acorns collected by Kingsmill students several years ago were ready to plant out. This time it was pupils from Oakfield school in Hull who took on the task of tree planting in D woods. This is needed as over the past few years there have been a lot of trees lost to ash dieback. Visitors will see several large trees felled near the path, their timber will be removed as well as leaving some to rot in situ. Thanks to the students for their help.

On a much smaller scale, but of equal importance, families joined the team during half term to build nestboxes and put them up in the woodland here at Tophill Low. This was part of the British Trust for Ornithology’s National nestbox week, a project that takes place each February to encourage people to put up nestboxes for woodland birds and to then monitor them to see which species use them to breed. These nest boxes will add to our existing stock and will be checked by our dedicated nestbox team.

Other tasks that volunteers have been involved in have been clearing the islands of south marsh west and replanting them with more native species, moving snowdrops to spread them out, many tasks in the polytunnels in preparation for the new growing season but also the arrival of sphagnum moss which we will be propagating in readiness to plant out on moorland in west Yorkshire. We have also constructed a new kingfisher nesting hole and bank on north lagoon as well as nesting islands for ducks, planted with a range of native wetland species that have been grown in our polytunnel.

With the wide range of volunteering tasks and opportunities available we always welcome new people to join us. We have four volunteer days each week so if anyone is interested (and is over 18) then please get in touch by email to Richard.Hampshire@yorkshirewater.co.uk.

School groups have started to come along for their school visits and have been enjoying pond dipping, looking at the birds on the reservoir and exploring the woodland habitat. Primary schools from across East Yorkshire and the city of Hull can book a free school visit on Wednesdays and Thursdays as part of Yorkshire Water's education programme. Teachers can book by visiting the dedicated website at Yorkshirewater.com/education. We also run family events in the school holidays, please visit our Facebook page or Eventbrite to book.

Wildlife on the reserve is showing the changing of the seasons as the number of wintering wildfowl using the reservoirs drop, leaving to return to their breeding grounds in northern Europe. Coot numbers have dropped rapidly over the last month and the number of teal and wigeon continue to decrease weekly. We still have a drake smew on site and the goldeneyes have been displaying and pairing up prior to their departure. Snowdrops were abundant in D woods in mid February but now coltsfoot are emerging and the first chiff chaffs arrived last week and can be heard singing along the nature trail and in D woods.

We have a “Signs of Spring” themed walk on Friday 14^th March at 2pm, a warden walk on 5^th April and family Easter activities on 15^th April. Please book via our Eventbrite page, search Tophill Low nature reserve. Booking is free, there is a cost of £1 per person on arrival. Please note no dogs are allowed on site and there are only toilet facilities, no refreshments.