Boundary House Fen, Saturday 28th January 2023

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 Jan 28th blog written by Eleanor D :)


Saturday we were at Boundary House Fen, working under the direction of Rod d’Ayala.

The weather was cloudy but dry and milder than recently, though there was still a thin layer of ice on parts of the fen. Judy Webb was also there, so we had brought the pots of maiden pinks that we had been charged with looking after for almost a year. Sadly, they were not looking very pink or maidenly, though there was a hopeful green shoot on one of them. Judy said she would take them home and bring them back to plant if they sprang into life in the Spring.

The scythers, who are the Praetorian Guard of Green Gym, set to work, having sharpened their weapons. Meanwhile, the foot soldiers raked and moved heaps of reeds and vegetation into the watercourse, in order to make the water spread out across the fen, or stacked them under designated trees.

Another task was to pick up marsh lousewort plants from the heaps and distribute them over the rest of the fen. This plant is useful as it parasitises the reeds and thus restricts their spread.

Judy found a harvest mouse nest and near it, sadly, a dead harvest mouse. It had probably come out of hibernation to find food, but got too cold. Harvest mice are tiny, only up to 3 inches long, with a tail almost as long as their body. They make a nest for their young, which is a neat sphere of woven grass, about the size of a tennis ball, and which they attach to a stalk, well above the ground. We also found another nest during our work, so the fen is clearly a good habitat for them.

It was time to pack up and go home, though there were still many heaps around that we hadn’t had time to move as well as scythed vegetation still unraked. There will be plenty of work for us on this fen in the coming months.




the bit to be scythed, before the scythers got going

Jim making a start

some of the rest get going scything

others raking cut material


tea time!

frozen fen

calcium deposits

nest of a harvest mouse

one harvest mouse who rose from hibernation too early


scythers and rakers at work


still raking!

still scything!


after the scythers had cut as much as doable in the morning

spreading marsh lousewort seeds

the fen looking lovely and wet



the new drainage cut







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