South Marsh work update

 

Thanks to everyone for their patience on the work at South Marsh East - the
work of constructing a causeway has been successfully completed and will
make a huge difference in being able to manage the marsh both now and for
many years to come - redressing limitations of the original construction.
Peter Izzard and myself in conjuction of the Hull Valley Wildlife Group
management committee have been supervising the works closely and have
decided to extend the causeway as far as the first tern island.  By adding
material we have now doubled the size of the island to cope with our
expanding population - with fresh gravel being added as the final step.
Getting here also enables us to get a mini digger onto the spits from where
we can undertake large scale reprofiling works.

The broad objective is to get as far into the western area where there are
no islands and build new ones.  We will then drag material out of the
'furrows' and rebuild the 'ridges' of the spits gving much more 'edge' for
waders along with nesting areas for lapwings and deeper pools to sustain
life when the marsh is dry.  We also intend to go into the reedgrass beds
of the Eastern area where we will again open out channels to better the
habitat for spotted crake and re-open vistas for observers.  The work is
intended to start (final funding permission pending) on Monday the 29th of
September and continue for approximately two weeks - we want to seize the
drier spell whilst it lasts.

An interesting preliminary investigation by Richard Sears has revealed very
little life within the silt of the marsh and could explain our poorer wader
passage this year.  Further study is needed but the addition of the
causeway itself, built of sub-soil rather than peat, is hoped to be a
better habitat than the thick anaerobic silt on the rest of the marsh,
having more of a substrate through which life can move.  The causeway
itself will be reprofiled at the end of work and flooded in winter and
fenced off to prevent access by foxes to the breeding terns.

 

This view of the South Marsh East taken in mid October shows the completed re-profiling of the area