Cothill Fen - Saturday, 3 August 2024

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Blog and photos by Sally

Eight Green Gymmers, led by Adrian, turned out on lovely Saturday morning at Cothill Fen SSSI in Dry Sandford, which is part of the Ruskin Reserve and is managed by Natural England.  It is one of our precious calcareous fens fed by springs whose water has percolated through a layer of chalk - the slightly alkaline conditions favouring a suite of specialist plants (mosses, sedges, cotton grasses, orchids and many others) and invertebrates, including rare soldier flies.  Calcareous fens are only found in Oxfordshire, Norfolk, Anglesey and Yorkshire and we are only just beginning to appreciate their importance in this time of climate change as they are a wonderful carbon store, but they need to be kept wet to prevent peat from drying out and releasing carbon.  Unfortunately, all fens really want to do are to "scrub up" and convert to woodland.  That's where we volunteers come in, as we are the equivalent of grazing herbivores, which would have once graced these lands, keeping the dominant encroaching vegetation such as reed and alder at bay to allow the fen specialists light and air in which to flourish and support a range of invertebrates.

We made our way along String Lane to meet up with Steph from Natural England on site.  The NE volunteers had been out the day before, so there was some raking to be done and finish up scything along the rather swanky broad walk, which is now being used by many walkers and their four-legged furry friends.  We set up our base in the "passing place" on the board walk and Steph explained what we would be doing.  The three scythers among us set up their scythes, whilst the rakers started to collect the remainder of the cut material from the day before and this was taken to the fish scale bunds,which have been created to act as a filter to help prevent polluted water from entering the fen (caused by agricultural run-off and also from the nearby quarry.)

It was lovely to see a few butterflies about and the occasional damselfly and dragonfly and we disturbed a couple of common lizards, which were delightful to see.

Unfortunately, Adrian disturbed a wasps' nest and one particularly vexed wasp stung him on his hand, but it was soon soothed by an application of antihistamine cream.  We were careful not to get too close to the nest afterwards and thankfully the wasps soon settled down.  With the prolonged cold wet spring, it is thought that a number of our wasps have perished.  Although they get a bad press, wasps are valuable pollinators and their larvae consume many nasty pests.  It's a shame they don't get the credit they deserve!

A very welcome break time was called at 11.00am, as by this time we had all worked up a thirst, and once we were all seated comfortably on a felled tree there was much talk about finalising plans for our 20th Anniversary celebration event taking place next Saturday, 10 August at Hinksey Heights, which we are all looking forward to, meeting up with other Oxfordshire Green Gyms.  A few of the Committee had agreed to meet at Hinksey Heights afterwards to shape up plans.

Suitably refreshed, it was time to get back to it.  We used shears to cut reed growing in awkward areas which we could not reach with our scythes.  It was super to see so many parsley water dropwort flowers; this being a good food plant for soldier flies, along with St John's Wort, purple loosestrife and hemp agrimony.  The bees also seemed to be enjoying the towering rosebay willowherbs with their pretty pink flowers. Mindful that the next work party for the NE volunteers would not be for another month, once we'd finished scything the areas Steph wanted us to, we turned to help rake up and add to the bunds.  It is always a joy to see this site and recall how, over a decade ago, we would have been confronted with an almost impenetrable 8-10ft high wall of reed and how we can now, from the board walk, look across Cothill Fen into the adjoining Parsonage Moor, which is managed by BBOWT and great to see progress each time we visit, thanks to everyone's hard work.

Getting prepared on the swanky new board walk as 
Steph and Adrian go through the tasks for the morning

Looking across the bunds

Kevin grabs a forkful for the bunds

A damselfly

A cigar gall - caused by a parasitic wasp

Rake's progress

Barbara scything trying to avoid cutting the parsley water dropwort

Yet another bundle of cut reed for the bund

Barbara and Adrian on the advance

Break time!

 Kevin, Carolyn and Eleanor - The board walk just wasn't wide 
enough to get these three fully in the break time photo!

Lesley on raking duty

Barbara finishing off scything, whilst Carolyn and Dieuwke 
use shears to cut around the hemp agrimony

Kevin raking onto the bund

Steph trampling down the cut material to firm up the bund




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