Blog

Notes on work, wildlife and Christmas opening times at Elmely

Now the clocks have changed and sunset is earlier, please be aware that the Reserve will close at 4pm.

News from Elmley in October

News from Elmley in September

Summer Newsletter Farming and land management What a glorious time of year! Early summer, the fruits of many months of hard work by all are abundant and even the sun is shining on occasional days! May has been challenging for our ground nesting birds rearing their young. Our third survey has been completed in tough conditions - long grasses, biting wind and showers (fantastic effort Richard & Ray!) but results look better than expected for most species. Of note, we currently have over 260 lapwing chicks at various stages of development but the standout results appears to be redshank which have had a fantastic year with over 500 chicks counted across the whole site. The rapid grass growth has likely helped the redshank, which make nests in the early growing tuffs of grass (see below). They are devilishly hard to spot! Our avian predators appear to be a little behind the rest with most marsh harrier nests still containing eggs or very young chicks. Barn owls are having a mixed year too with two boxes empty and another with five well grown young. Fingers crossed many of those chicks now fledge in the coming weeks. This year's calves are also coming on very well thanks to the cows having bountiful amounts of fresh grass to graze upon. The bulls have re-joined the herd and strike a prominent figure amongst each group of cows. With one bull to every thirty cows there are 19 bulls across Elmley until mid-August. Finally, in a week of fine weather we managed to drill this year's wild bird seed crops and pollen and nectar strips on the hay meadows. They are establishing well, despite a good nibbling by many of our hares, so in several weeks we hope to see a profusion of wildflower including corncockle, cornflowers, poppies and seed bearing plants like chicory. You will continue to see our team work across the marsh through the summer with hay cutting and 'topping' of over 2500 acres of lignant grass across the marsh after 15 July, the never-ending fencing repairs (no thanks to the bulls), maintain water levels on the viewing scrapes and, of course, repairs to the entry road. We do hope you all enjoy a lovely summer! Thoughts from a Regular Weather continued to be unpredictable thro’out May, even for the birds, some hatching broods early, some holding off nesting till nearly the end of the month. Good numbers of Lapwing chicks, huge numbers of Redshank chicks, Oystercatcher, Ring Plover, and Yellow Wagtail all seem to have bred well! Migrant Swifts and a single Hobby noted, and also one Wheatear hung on until at least the 30th May.