9th of March: Spring is in the air

The starlings in my garden are wolf-whistling at each other and the blackthorn in the hedgerows is coming into flower – spring is springing everywhere, including Blakeney.  We’re starting to see birds pairing off for the breeding season on the reserve, including stonechats on Friary Hills, reed buntings on the marsh and oystercatchers along the shingle ridge of the Point.  Our largest count of grey partridge pairs on Blakeney Point was an estimated 15 pairs on 24^th of February, growing from six on Valentine’s Day and smashing all previous records.  We have also regularly seen a gang of six shore larks still hanging around the Point, which always brighten our day.

In February we said goodbye to the last grey seal pup born quite late on the Point this year, pictured below (exactly three weeks after it was first found) fully moulted and in good condition for independence.

The last seal pup on Valentine's Day (photo: Mary Goddard)

Our trail camera on a gate post on Blakeney Freshes is a fantastic tool for seeing what birds of prey are about and we have been getting some lovely footage recently.  Below is a selection from the last month including a kestrel having a stretch, a barn owl on a calm and misty morning and two buzzards that can be differentiated as individuals by the varying amounts of pale plumage on their chests.  My favourite, though, is the sparrowhawk being startled by masses of pink footed geese coming in to feed on the field behind.

A kestrel stretching

Barn owl in the mist

Buzzard number 1

Buzzard number 2

Sparrowhawk and pink footed geese

With ditching works on the Freshes completed in January, next has been the annual reed cutting.  This is done in blocks on a five year rotation, which helps to prevent the humus layer from building up and allowing succession of scrub, whilst also maintain the heterogeneous mosaic of different age structures that benefits reed bed wildlife.  During this work we came across an interesting fungus growing out of the base of a reed stem, which I took some (bad) photos of to send to local fungi expert Tony Leech for help identifying.  Unfortunately my terrible photography made this difficult, but I was able to re-locate the specimen and collect it to pass on to Tony for inspection.  He identified it as Mycena belliarum (or reed bonnet), a rare fungus for which East Anglia is a strong hold.  Since the 1950s the species has been recorded at three other sites in Norfolk, one in Suffolk and one in Huntingdon.

Mycena belliarum found at Blakeney (photo: Tony Leech)

Finally is to report a little gem found at Morston while we were installing some new signage and dog bins – harvest mouse nests.  We found a couple in some long grass just off the track, beautifully camouflaged.  The female harvest mouse (Mycromys minutus) builds this spherical grass nest solely for the purpose of raising her young, creating a new nest for each litter she has.  The fact that we found two in such close proximity possibly indicates multiple litters by the same mouse.

A harvest mouse (Mycromys minutus) nest
(photo: Mary Goddard)

Post by Mary Goddard, Assistant Ranger

Norfolk Coast update

Blakeney Freshes – Yesterday saw the EA drop-in session at Blakeney where people had the opportunity to give their views about the impact of the tidal surge and the future of the area. There was an amazing turn out with lots of interested people, and a range of views. BBC Panorama were filming and John as well as other representatives of the local community were interviewed and it is being aired on Monday night.

Over the last week a feeding Kingfisher and Little egret and a Water Rail have been captured on ‘Freshes cam’. Also, salinity levels continue to slowly drop.
The coastal path around Blakeney Freshes is currently closed due to the breaches in the bank.

Today saw a Blakeney Point litter pick now the seals have dispersed. The lifeboat house has its new ramp and repairs are going well. For visitors during half term week, there is access to Blakeney Point as usual, but the Lifeboat House visitor centre and toilets remain closed to the end of March for the repair work.

It has been a busy week for Morston bridges activity. Earlier this week we met with stakeholders to explain the project and also to update about a temporary structure. This project is now at the point where Natural England have fully consented the works and we are just waiting on the Marine Management Organisation. The bridges will take 12 weeks to complete from fully appointing the contractors. A temporary scaffold structure near the remaining piles will be in place mid-March.

Heading west at Burnham watermill there are planned works to the brickwork of the mill.

At Brancaster the toilet repairs are going well and the electrics, pump and sewerage system are working. Next week will see new external doors and repairs inside. The works are on track to be completed by Easter.

Visitors to Branodunum will have an even better view of the coast as the last two remaining willows were pollarded thanks to the help of the Felbrigg team.

Some of you may be aware Brancaster Ativity Centre was badly affected, however three months on progress is going well. The drying equipment has now gone and schools will be hosted in March through to June in partnership with Deepdale Backpackers.

We are about to start work with UEA researchers from Brancaster to Salthouse to help us understand the impact of the tidal surge to e.g. soils, dunes, impact on flora and fauna.

Victoria Egan,
Countryside Manager

Morston Bridge update

Since my update on Tuesday, a couple of things have happened in relation to the Morston bridges...

Yesterday we had confirmation that the bridges are not and can not be insured and hence this is also the situation for the temporary structure. This leaves us with many worries over funding. Building two large bridges in such a dynamic environment is costly and National Trust finances were already stretched before the loss of the bridge on the 5th of December. We will be formally writing to seek donations to the bridge project, which needs to include a temporary structure being in place by the 1st of April.

We have received the methodology from the contractor we intend to use. Following on from this we are arranging a meeting with members of the bridge stakeholder steering group, people with a commercial interest or representatives of user-groups that have an interest in the access or working area associated with the replacement of the two large bridges.

The meeting will consider methods that will be used to replace the bridges, the sequence of the works, access needed to the work areas, impact to moorings and other users, timescales and temporary bridge structure.

We will be sending invites out on Monday, but in the meantime if you think this is you please do contact us.

- Victoria Egan, Countryside Manager

Latest updates

Blakeney Freshmarsh

Last Friday we issued a statement about our ongoing response to the tidal surge event of the 5th December 2013. If you haven’t seen it, please see below.

Today we are pleased that the Environment Agency have diggers on site at the Blakeney end of the Freshes sea wall. We have been pressing the Environment Agency to clear bank material that has collapsed in the area of the two tidal sluices that drain the Freshes, enabling them to evacuate water quickly should the Freshes become inundated again. We are also pleased that the Agency are investigating the southern sluice to establish whether the flow through this could be increased. We have also asked the Agency to manipulate the amount of water going through the Cley sluice to aid flushing of the marshes to reduce the salinity levels within the system. This means that some of the flow that would usually go straight through the main sluice under Cley Road is being diverted through the Freshes.

You may also notice that the affected footpaths are formally closed and chestnut paling has been erected by the Environment Agency to highlight that the areas are not safe to walk on.

We are undertaking weekly salinity measurements to help us understand the ongoing impact and we are pleased that the flushing is working and the salt content of the ditch network is reducing.

The Environment Agency are hosting a public drop-in session on Thursday 13^th February from 2.30 to 7pm in Blakeney Scout Hut. This is a good opportunity for you to feed in your views and concerns. We are in regular contact with the Environment Agency and Natural Engand and will continue to provide updates

Morston Bridges

One of the issues that arose as a result of the tidal surge was that a 20-metre long bridge at Morston Quay was swept away. The bridge is one of four that enable access to the landing stages, pontoons and marsh north of the lower quay.

We do have a project to replace this bridge known as Bridge 2 and a second sizeable bridge to the north, known as Bridge 4. We have issued a letter of intent to a contractor and are waiting for the final consents to come back from the various organisations e.g. Natural England, North Norfolk District Council planning and Marine Management Organisation. We will then fully appoint the contractor with works due to start on site at the end of February and a 12-15 week construction window.

We have asked the contractor to prioritise Bridge 2 and in the next few days we will be receiving the schedule of works that we can share with you next week.

We are aware of concern locally about the missing bridge and we have been exploring various options for a temporary structure. We met with the original bridge stakeholder group and the feedback was that a temporary structure needed to be in place at the latest by the 1st of April. We need to ensure any temporary option is safe for all users and is able to cope with the conditions and the environment it would sit in. We cannot guarantee the condition of the remaining piles and safety for the public, which is why we are looking at alternatives.

The National Trust has suffered a significant amount of damage across the coast and we have challenges with funding. We have met with a loss adjustor and are waiting for the report of whether there could be an insurance claim associated with the bridges that we hope to receive by the end of the week.

We would like to reassure all those with an interest that we are exploring a range of options and that we should hopefully be able to provide a further update later this week or early next week.

- Victoria Egan (Countryside Manager)

National Trust statement: ongoing response to tidal surge event in December 2013

In December 2013 much of the east coast of the UK was subject to severe flooding following extremely high tidal surges. The North Norfolk Coast was among the many areas affected by these surges.

In North Norfolk, the National Trust cares for large areas of coastline, including Blakeney Point, Blakeney Fresh Marsh, Brancaster Beach and land adjacent to Brancaster West Marsh. All of these areas were severely flooded in December and work began immediately to plan a response that meets both local economic, environmental and ecological needs.

Flooding of freshwater marshes has presented the most complex issues after the sea defences were breached in several places, resulting in saltwater flooding.

Further high tides are predicted in the coming weeks and we are pleased that the Environment Agency has this week responded to requests to investigate the sluices that drain the Blakeney site with a view to getting them both working again. This will be vital in ensuring seawater drains from the freshwater marshes more efficiently, mitigating the impact for wildlife and future use of the marsh.

The National Trust is very clear in its position that in planning for the long-term future of these marshes, doing nothing is not an option. Blakeney and Brancaster marshes need the chance to respond to potential changes in conditions and we want to see options that outline what interventions are needed to allow these habitats to adapt and flourish.

We have called for a full and thorough appraisal of options and would like to see a plan that works in harmony with natural processes to deliver a sustainable solution in social, ecological and financial terms that ensures public benefits are fully recognised.

There are a number of organisations involved in planning the next steps for future of the North Norfolk coast and it is vital that we all, along with the local community and landowners, are able to work in partnership throughout this complex decision making process.

Post-flooding update

Here is an update on what is going on across the Norfolk Coast National Trust property following the tidal surge event on the 5^th of December:

Brancaster Activity Centre – the team have moved to the volunteer block at Burnham and will be working with Deepdale Backpackers to host schools whilst the centre is being repaired.

Brancaster Beach – debris cleared with support of village and further dates arranged with RSPB and local community.

Brancaster toilets – repairs have started and they should be open for Easter.

Burnham Windmill – minor damage has been repaired.

Morston/Stiffkey – we have started the process of reuniting boats with owners, and some lots have been claimed. Contact us for more information.

Morston Bridge – we are exploring options to replace the missing bridge with a temporary structure. The project to replace the permanent bridges has been given the go-ahead and we are waiting on final consents to come through before we fully appoint the contractor. We are hoping works will start on-site in February, with both bridges installed by the end of May.

Blakeney Point Lifeboat House – repairs started last week by Draper and Nichols who undertook the renovation project last winter, which means they are up and running and know the building well. So far the damaged ramp has been removed and floors lifted.

Sea defences – we are in regular contact with the Environment Agency and Natural England. We hope to give a further update next week – so keep an eye on the blog. 

Horsey Windpump – the sails and cap of the windpump sustained damage in the gusts of the 5^th of December, and have been damaged further during more recent high winds. We were planning to remove the sails this year but have had to do this sooner than planned.

General – although a lot of debris has been cleared thanks to volunteer help, there is still some debris to clear in various places along the coast.

Please also read: National Trust statement: ongoing response to tidal surge event in December 2014

Also, follow this link to read Richard Porter's article on the surge.

The flooding of Blakeney Freshes

Two weeks on from the extreme tidal surges that battered much of the eastern coast of the UK, National Trust rangers and specialist conservation teams have been making progress on the long road to recovery.

(Photo courtesy of Mike Page)

National Trust properties were amongst the many on the North Norfolk coast to take the brunt of the tidal surge. This week we caught up with Helen Dangerfield, Head of Conservation at the National Trust in the East of England to get an update…

Severe damage was caused to buildings in Brancaster and on Blakeney Point, as well as extensive flooding of land, including the Blakeney Freshes.

In Brancaster, the Activity Centre was flooded. It has now been emptied of all its contents and the first stages of drying out and repair are being planned.

On Blakeney Point, National Trust ranger teams and volunteers have started making progress on the clear up operation, with repairs being started on the boardwalk that protects the sand-dunes and a clean-up of the iconic lifeboat house is due to get underway once essential safety checks have been completed.

Flooding of Blakeney Freshes has presented the most complex issues after the sea defences were breached in several places, resulting in saltwater flooding these freshwater marshes. We have been closely monitoring the drainage of saltwater off the marshes and have been working with the Environment Agency to find solutions to get the Southern Sluice back into operation.

With further high tides predicted for the new year, it is essential that a viable long-term solution to the management of the marshes is found, and we will be meeting with the Environment Agency and Natural England to review the impacts of flooding as well as working with local stakeholders.

It is essential that any planned works balance both the environmental and wildlife needs of this site, together with an understanding of the potential impacts of future high tides. Further meetings are already planned with the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Norfolk Wildlife Trust as we consider the options at Cley, Salthouse and Blakeney.

Seal pups, scats, tags and a digger

Here is a quick summary of the various things that happened over the festive period, starting with seals.

The seal pups have virtually just finished with only 6 being born since Boxing Day, bringing the total count to 1220. Most have left the beach and have started to form the normal colony at the tip of the Point. Eddie counted dead pups which numbered 53 meaning that there has been just a 5% mortality rate.

Both seals we took before Christmas to RSPCA East Winch are faring well. Lion King (nasty gash) is still in isolation and Prince Albert despite having a bad eye is progressing well.

On the 4th Graham & Eddie spotted this bull seal adorned with a satellite tag. It was tagged in France last summer and although its the first time we have seen it amongst the hundreds out there, we have since found out it has been here since the 8th December.

Less glamorous, today Eddie & Graham collected seal scat at the request of the Sea Mammal Research Unit based in Scotland. This involves scanning above the high tide mark and when a collection is made, noting the date, grid reference and number. We will be able to provide an update about what the scats contain in March but today we collected 46.

 Any good captions?

Last night the Time Team dig that took place at Branodunum Roman Fort last August was aired on Channel 4. If you missed it here is the link:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/time-team/4od

Everyone seemed super-impressed by the condition of the site and the amount of finds, and they were really pleased with the geophys that showed buildings we didn't even know were there. There is too much to mention here so do take a look!

Today on Blakeney Freshmarsh our annual ditch clearing work has started to de-silt them to enable water flow. We are working on a 10-year rotation to provide a range of different ditch conditions across the site. As well as clearing the ditches, the digger operator spreads the spoil as evenly as possible to allow our other management e.g. topping to take place. As we share boundaries between the 8 other landowners on Blakeney Freshes we share costs and time it to take place in one go.

 Lots of slubbings coming out of this ditch

 

Victoria, Countryside Manager

Rot-ten day for seals and lifeboat house!

Cast your mind back in the mists of time 8 days ago when we wrote a post about a visit from staff from the RSPCA wildlife hospital at East Winch. We mentioned that on occasions we call on their excellent facilities and expertises when we get a sick or injured seal. Until yesterday all was reasonably quiet in the seal colony but whilst doing our twice weekly count George came across this little pup.  

It had either approached the wrong mum for food or got in the way of a Bull seal defending an area of beach. Whichever, it definitely came off worst in the encounter! This picture was sent to East Winch and few minutes later came the response 'Please could you get it here ASAP?'. I called up Elaine one of our Volunteer Seal Rangers and we set off complete with our stretcher. We found the pup and carried it the half mile back to the nearest vehicle pick-up point. Then it was off to East Winch to deliver it. First thing on arrival is to get the pup weighed and give it a name. This one was 14.8Kgs and as it is Jubilee year the theme is Royalty so he got the name Lion King (must have run out of monarchs names as they are already nearly full). This little pup will stay with them now until he reaches the required release weight of 45Kgs. He will be living on a diet of fish soup, basically herring put through a blender, until he can eat whole fish. Females are released at 40Kgs. The actual count of new borns added another 32 to the running total making an incredible 1197. 

The builders refurbishing the Lifeboat House had an extra helping hand as one of the pups decided to move under one of the vehicles. Not happy with the hundreds and hundreds of acres of space, this one put itself in the middle of the works.

Speaking of the Lifeboat house works, the more they undercover the more the problems mount including rusty steel girders, holes in the chimney breast and rotten windows. Looks like the works are timely!

Graham
Coastal Ranger

Update from Brancaster Millenium Activity Centre

Here at BMAC we are now deep into our Winter mode – decorating and maintenance, updating Risk Assessments, training and Winter tidying of the garden. We saw the last of our adult special interest birdwatching week-ends (no snow this time, thankfully, and thousands of pink-footed geese obliging at Holkham) and Alex now has the full 2013 programme drawn up.

We have a very few residential slots left next year – mostly in the early months – so I am working hard on marketing these late vacancies.  Our website is now all up to date with booking information and forms so if you are interested please find out more at www.nationaltrust.org.uk/brancaster or contact me at the office. We can take bookings for conferences, meetings etc throughout the year except January (you’d have to avoid the wet paintwork).  We have recently taken our first hen-weekend booking.

Next year sees a lot more of our taster sessions, kayaking, rafting and sailing, after their growing popularity, these can be booked via the central box office on 0844 249 1895.  We’ve put these through the box office to allow staff to be available to put on the greater number of sessions as the administration was becoming considerable.  It is still possible for groups to get enough people together to book their own day doing one or more of our taster activities – we had a group of choirboys on a camp last year, and a large extended family. If you are interested please contact the centre directly on 01485 210719.

We say goodbye to our Long Term Volunteer Lizzie before Christmas and welcome Annie in mid January to join Jo who is staying on, and a third volunteer yet to be recruited.  If you are interested in supporting our work please get in contact!

From all of the team at Brancaster we would like to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Nita Jackman

Learning officer

A Turkey, a Tiger and much more

On Thursday the 13th December we had our team christmas outing. We met Paul Eele the RSPB's reserve manager for Titchwell. Paul gave us an interesting introduction to the reserve and their management of it. We then spent the morning walking around the reserve with most of us reaching the hide complex and beach.

Countryside manager Victoria won the award for the best / strangest hat ever seen at Titchwell or anywhere come to think of it (see below).

Victoria with Keith, Marilyn and Millie, my dog who was too embarrassed to look

We then made our way to Briarfields hotel for lunch which all 31of us agreed was a wonderful meal. Even our resident Tiger was full at the end (see below). 

  Rob won a pint for wearing this, well deserved I think!

On Friday 14th December Eddie and George did the latest seal pup count which was 1165, already well over 200 more than the total count from last Winter. Now that the pups have started leaving the colony, we now only count new born pups and add to our previous total, which is fairly easy to do as they grow so fast. BBC Winterwatch have now finished filming the seals, watch out for it early in 2013, we have not got a specific date yet.

On Monday the 17th the monthly WeBS (Wetlands Bird Survey) count was done by splitting the reserve into sections and a member of staff or volunteer counting each section. Nothing remarkable was seen but all the usual suspects were present

In the past week a couple of the channel marker buoys have broken off their moorings and washed up in amongst the seal colony. Iain and myself decided the best way to get them back to the Harbour Boatmens Association was to pick them up by boat and return them to Morston quay for any repairs to be done. We did this on Monday on the early morning tide.

After finishing this I went to empty Blakeney Parish Councils car park machine on the Carnser only to find the whole machine had been stolen. About an hour after it was reported, I received a call from the Police to say it had been found,  lying in many pieces on the side of the road . This means for the sake of a few pounds several thousand pounds damage has been done. We are liaising with the Parish clerk about a replacement machine but this will take several weeks so you may not see the regular site of the hut on the quay for a while.

Finally for now George, Paul and I accompanied Langham School on a visit to Blakeney Point to see the Seals. I hope they had as much fun as we did taking them.

Graham Lubbock Coastal Ranger

Ps this is my first blog post, let me know what you think!