Revealed from the scaffolding

This week has been a really interesting one for the Lifeboat house project. Most of the scaffold has been taken down and the new doors are revealed for the first time.

I know this could be in a category for a badly taken photo but it was freezing and snow was about to blow in. The posts you can see are the pilings for the ramp that is being put in as a nod back to how the former lifeboat house looked. It will be great to open the big doors for the first time to visitors in only a couple of weeks. If you are wondering the white door will be blue soon enough!

Another bit of restoration work is a repair to the toilet block roof which, like the lifeboat hosue, was also leaking.

We hosted Sophie Wyllie from the EDP this week and there was a really nice double-spread in the paper today. http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/video_and_photo_gallery_blakeney_point_lifeboat_house_restoration_project_s_race_against_time_1_1979342


If you missed it here are some much better photos indeed from Anthony Kelly http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/blakeney_point_lifeboat_house_restoration_1_1979341?storyId=1.1979342.1363286740

Victoria, Countryside Manager

Update from Brancaster Activity Centre

Here at the Activity Centre we are busy setting everything up ready for our first residential schools of the season, having already had some A’Level field studies groups and a very successful Oil Painting week-end with our new tutor Merrie Curtis-Fuller.

Our Roman Activity went down a treat with our partner schools and we get to try it for the first time with the general public over Easter and with schools after that.  Also trialled was our new Discovery activity as we design activities which will get the children out of doors more on their first day and working towards the new Young Ranger Award.  This Award is being championed by our learning officer Em Chittenden who will be very happy to talk to anyone interested in what we are doing.

As part of our new Young Ranger Award activities we have dropped our old ‘Go Green’ and ‘Stay Green’ sessions which involved looking at our recycling, landfill etc; whilst very interesting and central to our sustainable ethos, these were largely indoor activities.  The centre continues to be an ‘Eco Centre’, but appreciates that most children are now familiar with the concept of recycling from home so it’s no longer news to them. 

The new discovery sessions centre around the concept of looking after special places and connect strongly to current ideas of going local and appreciating the opportunities on our doorsteps which link to sustainable living.

To keep our sustainable ethos core to our everyday work and in the forefront of staff minds we update our environmental policy yearly and staff commit to items on this. With staff in-house who have worked on the successful Energy Buster’s programme, we also aren’t allowed to forget to reduce our carbon footprint.

Our taster sessions for Easter are still open for booking – 0844 249 1895 is the box office number or people can book via our website.  Customers may also if they wish phone the activity centre for details.

We have 2 new full-time volunteers to welcome to the team, Seb  and ‘Becca so you may see them on activity with us.  

Nita, Learning Officer

Update on the lifeboat house refurb works

Lots has been happening with the Lifeboat house project over the last week or so.

The installation of the insulation is nearing completion and most of the old cladding has been replaced. The outside of the new lookout tower is finished and we have installed swift boxes onto it in the hope of attracting them as a breeding species. We have been playing swift calls the last couple of summers so hopefully some young birds will spot the potential and use the boxes.

No more a rotten window

A new fireplace has gone in and a flue fitted to take the new wood burner that will provide heat to the downstairs, two upstairs bedrooms reducing the use of gas heaters.

The flooring is starting to be replaced inside, the new office desk installed and some of the old furniture that no longer meets regualtions removed.

However by far the most obvious and for me exciting feature is the massive new doors on the front. Paul Dawson from Draper & Nicholls sent me this picture on Friday night of them just finished. I am glad I am not painting them!

Victoria, Countryside Manager

Marine Conservation Zones

The government, having previously indicated an ambition for the establishment of 127 Marine Conservation Zones (MCZ) is now consulting on a much more modest list of 31 MCZs.  This consultation closes on 31 March 2013.

These 127 MCZs are entirely separate from the additional 65 ‘Reference Areas’ (rRA) recommended to government by the various regional stakeholder projects (in our case NetGain).  The National Trust has previously raised particular concerns in relation to a cluster of inter-tidal ‘Reference Areas’ (rRA), particularly Blakeney Marsh (rRA4).  We have welcomed therefore the advice by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) and Natural England (NE) to government that ‘the process to identify reference areas was flawed and failed to deliver recommendations that satisfy JNCC and Natural England’.  We are therefore pleased that Reference Areas are not part of the current consultation and are not going to be taken forward in their current form and we wait with interest further information on how the review for Reference Areas will be taken forward.

However, we are concerned that the government lacks ambition to protect the marine environment and we wish to see the establishment of a coherent network of MCZs and this should start with the designation of the proposed 127 MCZs (which excludes Reference Areas).

Our position is that the government:

·      Should be more ambitious and commit to establishing a much larger suite of MCZs than the current consultation proposes.

·      Needs to be more realistic about the evidence requirements to support the establishment of MCZs, having now set the bar unnecessarily high.

·      Involve Stakeholders in reconsidering how to best establish a scientific baseline against which the conservation management of the wider MCZ network can be evaluated

·      Should support high quality stakeholder involvement in the setting up and management of MCZs.

Please do have a look at our latest regional blog: 

http://eastofenglandnt.wordpress.com/ regionalised version

John Sizer, Property Manager

Tree safety works

We are in the middle of undertaking tree safety works at the moment. Earlier in the month we undertook some pro-active work to the evergreen oaks outside the church at Bale and a couple of days we felled two small trees at the nearby Bullfer Grove. The trees were felled as they had been identified on a tree health survey as needing work.

This one in particular was very rotten!

It was such a Spring-like morning with woodpeckers drumming, nutchatches calling and these hazels catkins out.

I will post some more good rot photos soon from the beech trees that had to be felled near our base.

I'm off now to go up Blakeney Point to see how the lifeboat house works are progressing. There are lots of changes happening in a short time and I will update you very soon.

Victoria, Countryside Manager

Goodbye from Eddie

Eddie, Coastal Ranger for Blakeney Point has taken up a Head Warden role with his fiancee Bee, looking after the widlife of Skomer Island. After a farewell meal and drinks to send him on his way, here are a few thoughts he would like to share. Thank you Eddie for all you have done for the wildlife of Blakeney and your work to help visitors of all ages experience it.

"Writing my last blog has proved to be much more difficult than I thought it would be. Basically there is too much to say in a small space. I have tried to say how much I love the place, how important it is, put down a few of the amazing experiences that I have had there over the years and to thank as many people for their help and support as possible in a few paragraphs. I found it impossible so please excuse this lame attempt at trying to do so.

I began working for the National Trust at Blakeney Point as a Seasonal Assistant Warden in 2006 and became permanent Coastal Warden at the end of the same year. Although I did already know Blakeney Point, working and living there was a whole new thing. Blakeney Point is quite simply the nearest thing to perfection in nature’s form and power. The Point and its wildlife are always changing and this gives you a feeling of constant anticipation. I never got bored. I was also privileged to be working there during its centenary year in 2012. The history of Blakeney Point is unsurpassed and I found it a great honour to be in charge during its centenary year. At the very end of 2012 my fiancé (Birgitta) and I were offered the unmissable opportunity to work together on Skomer island off the Pembrokeshire coast. Therefore February 2013 saw the end of my (our) time at Blakeney. I will miss the Point a great deal but take consolation from the fact that I will be working on such an exciting island and can always come back to Blakeney. Blakeney will never really leave me.

During my time at Blakeney I have witnessed so many amazing things – too many to mention here – and worked with so many great people that I find it almost impossible to believe and I will never forget these experiences. To name a few: I have worked with Britain’s largest and most important Sandwich Tern colony; swum with seals and quite possibly lay claim to being the only person in the world to have swum alongside a Sowerby’s Beaked Whale (albeit a dying one); attempted to help struggling porpoises and collected mutilated seal carcases off the beach; had Merlins fly within inches of my head in pursuit of prey (once within the Lifeboat House); ran naked along the beach in the pouring rain; had a Common Seal pup attach itself to my leg, probably because it thought I might feed it and seen countless amazing birds including birds new to Blakeney and Norfolk.

I would like to say thanks to so many people and can’t name them all here but here is a rather incomplete list:

All NT staff I have worked with

Millie the dog

All volunteers

Local ferrymen and women

Norfolk etc

Local fishermen, reedcutters, baitdiggers etc etc

Local police

Local people in general

Regular birdwatchers and naturalists

Friendly visitors and tourists

Researchers, county recorders and students

Lecturers from the UCL

Aylemerton Field Studies Centre

Wardens etc from neighbouring reserves

Blakeney, Langham and Hindringham Primary Schools

The families that own the small huts near the Lifeboat House

The Watch House Trust and visitors to the Watch House

The terns

The seals

In 2012 we started this blog in order to pass on some of these intimate experiences, get across some conservation messages, let people know what they can expect from Blakeney Point and what Blakeney Point expects of them and let people know what we get up to out on the Point. As this is my last blog I thought I ought to do what I normally do and say what is happening on the Point at the moment: The seals have mostly all dispersed into the North Sea – where two months ago nearly four thousand cows, bulls and pups filled the beach and dunes around Far Point (more than 1,222 seal pups were born this season), there are now only a few hundred remaining. In fact things are relatively quiet at this time of year. However, there is still loads of great wildlife around – flocks of Snow Buntings flurry along the Points beaches and shingle ridges, wintering raptors such as Peregrines and Hen Harriers hunt its lonely shores and Grey Partridges and Hares survive the harsh winter weather as best they can. Now we wait for warmer weather and the return of our summer migrants. As early as March the Sandwich Terns will be back and the rest will follow in April. The first Wheatears and Swallows are always welcome signs of the coming of spring.

Just to round things off, on my last day I saw a Marsh Harrier with green wing tags which had been tagged at Sculthorpe Moor, near Fakenham, in 2011, roosting in the reedbed on Blakeney Freshes. Maybe, once more information comes to light; there will be another update about this fascinating bird.

I wish the Point, its wildlife and people all the best for the future."

- Eddie Stubbings

Here are a few pictures Eddie selected as highlights:

Embroidery by Julia Porter

Eddie with former Head Warden Dave Wood (left) in 2006

Millie

Eddie working with friend and assistant Paul Nichols

Snowed under with work

The weather has been the main talking point over the past few days. It has disrupted the work on the lifeboat house, although as you can see from the image below the contractors have been doing their best in all weathers having to baton down the hatches in a howling blizzard. Their main problem has been getting staff onto the point due to the difficult travelling conditions. 

They are now stripping the old tin off the Lifeboat house and putting in insulation which they will then start to put the new tin sheeting back on, along with rebuilding the observation tower which had previously found to be rotten and beyond repair.

Some of the wildlife has been struggling in the conditions although the last known grey seal pup born on the Point this winter does not fall into this category. It has a good mum who is never far away and the perfect coat for surviving the snow. 

The English partridges mentioned in a previous blog are struggling to find food, a sure sign of this is that we were able to drive to within a few yards of one small covey which were feeding close to the track, see below. Although struggling a bit we are seeing anything up to thirty on an average visit with coveys up to sixteen and as low as three. The best recent count being forty five, which is a significant number these days!

This afternoon ITV Anglia did some filming with John, Property Manager for the Norfolk coast about the lifeboat house refurbishment works. It will be shown at 6pm tonight if the editing is completed on time. Here is a shot of the filming. 

 

We will post some more photos of the lifeboat house refurb shortly.

Graham, Coastal Ranger

16th of January: Snowy Hare today

15^th of January 2013: it had snowed overnight but the morning was bright and fresh. We had planned a trip up the Point to look into predator control measures for the coming season. As we passed the Lifeboat House we spotted a Brown Hare sheltering in the lee of a suaeda bush in full sun. Graham was able to photograph it without disturbing it, leaving it basking in the ephemeral sunshine. We then took a walk up Far Point to look for signs of rats around the colony. On the way we saw a Shorelark and a Skylark, some Snow Buntings, a Merlin and some coveys of English Partridges. There were very few Grey Seal pups left on the beach and Far Point and there haven't been any births since around the 7th of January. It seems likely that the pupping season is over for another year and that most seals have now dispursed into the North Sea. Viewers of the BBC's Winter Watch can still catch up with spectacular highlights from the peak of the pupping season by watching the programme, real time or on iplayer.

Right on the end of Far Point the weather started to change and the picture of Graham carrying a dead gull shows how black the sky had become. It was time to turn around, as we were presently in one of the most remote locations in Norfolk and a blizzard was approaching fast over the North Sea. As we walked back down Far Point the snow started, slowly at first but increasing to the point of snow storm by the time we reached shelter. On our way back we took a few more pictures of the Point in the storm.

            

 As Norfolk people say: 'was gorn on over Hare?'.

 

 Graham walking away from the approaching storm.

 

A panorama taken on Victoria's iphone.

 

The Watch House through the blizzard.

 

Back to safety. Photo taken down the Point from Cley Coast Guards, after the storm.

- Ed

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

1st of January: Happy New Year

The National Trust would like to say a big HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone, and especially those that have followed our blog over the last nine months. We hope that you will continue to have an interest in the things we do along the coast and support (and enjoy) our important conservation work in 2013.

Here are a few photos from our first trip out to Blakeney Point this year:

Fat and Happy (Edward Stubbings)

This pup clearly has a bad hangover after a heavy night at probably the best new years party in the world! (Edward Stubbings)

A dead Porpoise calf found freshly dead on Blakeney Point today (Edward Stubbings)

- Ed