Swale and Wednesday Roaming Volunteers Update

Swale Volunteers Update

Swale Volunteers spent the last of winter and the start of spring 2024 at Oare Marshes, cutting more reed across the East Flood, opening up channels into the grazing marsh and reducing reed and scrub around the main scrape. The team were busy putting in new metal gates to the west flood, cutting back Church Road, and fixing ditch wings and gates before our cattle return from calving in early spring. The reserve has slowly changed character with several species moving on from Oare in late winter – we got up to 9 Spoonbills along with good numbers of teal, avocet, lapwing and dunlin and more than 20 common snipe in late winter – though many have moved on to their breeding sites. We had a brief visit from a male garganey for a few weeks which was great to see, though the white-tailed eagle sighted nearby stubbornly refused to fly over our reserve, but was sighted over on Sheppey.

We are monitoring the water levels across Oare, however this wet winter and exceptional high tides means all areas remain significantly flooded at the start of April. The volunteer team did manage one day on another reserve, dropping in to Cromers Wood to work on badly damaged paths following our ash dieback work, which was undertaken this winter. This remnant ancient woodland is now in spring flower with primroses, bluebells and wood anemone all on show.

Whilst we understand that visitors to Oare Marshes may find our winter work disruptive, due to the human presence within the reserve, power tool noise and smoke from fires, this work is absolutely necessary to manage the reserve’s habitats and support as many species as possible over winter and spring.  The website lists which days of the week a work party may be present on site and we would ask that if you are planning to visit, avoid those days.

Wednesday Roaming Team Update

For the Swale warden this winter the Wednesday roaming team have spent quite a bit of time at Oare Meadow, located at the edge of the village.

The meadow hadn’t previously had a lot of work undertaken for a few years beyond necessary fencing repairs.

This winter however the meadow’s scrub, club rush and invasives have all been worked on to open it up. Along with some fencing work the team’s hard work has put the meadow in a good place before cattle return to graze it.

The team also headed out to Stalisfield to work on a site that has many (many!) ponds, reducing pond vegetation (via amphibious brush cutting!) and reinstating a gate between fields. However getting the vehicle stuck – twice - was more excitement than we wanted on a cold wet day, but as with many sites the ground conditions are sodden, making access to working areas its own challenge.

Thanks to the volunteers’ efforts, we got out without having to call a farmer to pull us out!