An afternoon with Ranworth visitor centre volunteers

Angela Collins, Volunteer coordinator

Today I visited our Ranworth reserve to meet some of our fabulous visitor centre volunteers. The volunteers were invited to take a boat trip by one of our experienced boat guides, so they could learn more about the broad, its wildlife and can tell visitors what they can expect when they book a boat trip. Plus, because of the way that the visitor centre works, the majority of volunteers have their set days of working and so don’t often get to see each other: this was an ideal opportunity to meet and get to know others in their team and share experiences.

Ranworth Volunteers: Stuart and Sue

The boat trip from the floating Broads Wildlife Centre was great. The highlight was definitely watching an otter swim by, a rare treat for us all. There were plenty of baby birds around, including great crested grebe, mallards, Egyptian geese & black headed gulls. Unfortunately we didn’t see the osprey which has been spotted again several times this year - some lucky people having a boat trip only last week had the osprey fly directly overhead. The views from the boat as it circled around the broad were so peaceful and beautiful, the quietness of the electric engine meant that we were able to get close to several birds without them being disturbed and flying away. Maurice our boat guide, talked of the history of the broad, how it was formed by peat digging, and how the different edges of the broad age and change its shape. The tree lined edges are very prone to erosion and there were several trees stranded within the broad where it would have once been water’s edge, whereas the reed bed edges slowly encroach on the broad.   

We talked about the bio-manipulation experiment; a floating cage with water plants and a curtain to the floor of the broad, keeps fish out and inside water fleas were able to thrive and eat the algal bloom keeping the water clear. The volunteers were clearly all enthusiastic and passionate and already knew a great deal about Ranworth, but the trip showed there is always something new to learn.

Ranworth Volunteers: Jean, Lorna and Linda

We then returned to the floating visitor centre, where the comments book showed that visitors arrive from all over the world; Australia, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand, Italy, and Cyprus were all found in a quick flick through the book.  The volunteers all felt that meeting and talking to a vast variety of people was what made their role so interesting and enjoyable, and being at a stunning location helps. On the webcam in the centre we were able to watch 2 baby terns on the nesting platforms on the broad. These can also be seen on our website if you can’t get to Ranworth.  

It was a pleasure to meet some of our volunteers, and hear about their experiences, and why they volunteer. Our visitor centres could not open as often as they do, and provide such a warm and informative welcome to our thousands of visitors without the week-on-week support of our wonderful volunteers. A big thank you, on behalf of the Trust, to them all.  

Ranworth Volunteer: Joan

If you are interested in volunteering with Norfolk Wildlife Trust, please have a look on our website at opportunities currently available, or contact me angelac@norfolkwildlifetrust.or.ukangelac@norfolkwildlifetrust.or.uk 

Hooray for Hedges!

Eilish Rothney, Warden - Trinity Broads Reserve

This month in the Trinity Broads we are focussing on hedgerows. In Britain,  I think we have got so used to the gradual removal of hedges that it is only looking back that we can see how much has been lost, and with the hedgerows goes all the wildlife associated them.

In Filby a team of volunteers braved the cold last Sunday to plant over 300 hedge plants, filling in “gaps” where once a hedge would have been. Elsewhere in Filby the Monday volunteers have been preparing ground to restore nearly half a kilometre of hedge.

As linear habitat hedgerows can provide essential cover and food for many animals to move around. Bats can use them to commute to hunting grounds and some species will feed directly off hedgerow foliage, “gleaning”. Newts may use them to move between ponds. The more varied the hedge species, the structure and the base plants, the better the hedge for wildlife. Native trees and shrubs are always best, with hawthorn providing flowers and nectar in spring and berries in the autumn, hazel catkins provide early spring pollen for a variety of insects and the hazelnuts later in the year sustain small mammals using the hedge. Other shrubs such as fieldmaple, blackthorn and dogwood add to the variety and can provide dense areas helpful to songbirds looking for nesting sites safe from predators such as magpies and domestic cats.

Other wildlife using hedgerows include bees, butterflies, shrews, bank voles and even harvest mice; and of course, the wonderful hedgehog. The lovely hedgehog is one of my favourite animals, but its population has shown a catastrophic decline from around 30 million in the 1950s to only 1.5 million by 1995; latest estimates show that it has declined further, down one third in the last 14 years. Neat and tidy gardens, use of pesticides, impenetrable fences and walls and hedgerow loss have all contributed their decline. Feeding on variety of things, Hedgehogs can be helpful by consuming slugs and insect pests.  Keeping gardens hedgehog friendly and planting hedges as sheltered pathways helps these lovely iconic creatures roam safely.  

Hedgehog, photo by Tim Lake

The collective name for hedgehogs is a “prickle” - let’s hope that we can encourage their numbers so they can become a common sight again.



We will be having another Hedge day on Sunday 15 March see the NWT Living Landscape website for more information

A mid-winter visit to Ranworth

Barry Madden, NWT Volunteer

A mid-winter visit to NWT Ranworth Broad seldom disappoints and today it looked wonderful bathed as it was in the rich glow from the low-angle on a January sun. 

Black headed gull at Ranworth Staithe

First stop was to watch people feeding the ducks by the Staithe. Here the mallards are joined by a flotilla of coots, a pair of cantankerous swans and the ever present and watchful black headed gulls. These latter opportunists, visitors from the Baltic perhaps, mug the local wildfowl of their stale bread and buns, swooping and plunging with marvellous ease and sometimes plucking the morsel from the air before it makes contact with the cold water. Most were adults, some beginning to moult into their summer plumage sporting a mottling of brown head feathers amidst plumage of silver grey; one or two were first winter birds with smudged wing coverts and light orange beaks. All were hungry, but not for long if the steady procession of young children carrying plastic bags full of promise was anything to go by. The nutritional value of the starch and sugar on offer is debatable, but such activity sometimes represents the first, sadly maybe only, contact young people have with wildlife. If they revel in the frantic scrabbling of the ducks and hoot with laughter when one stands on the others foot in the melee and gets a peck for its trouble, then surely that can only be good? Lifelong love affairs with nature have been birthed from less.

Next a stroll along the boardwalk that leads through the NWT reserve. The wet woodland Carr was at first eerily quiet, seemingly devoid of life, but standing still for a few minutes soon changed that impression. First to show themselves were a small charm of goldfinches quietly teasing seeds from high in the alders above. Closer inspection of the tree tops revealed one or two siskins amongst them and, delight of delights, a lovely pink hued redpoll. A flight of chaffinches cascaded into the lower branches, closely followed by a buzzing party of hyper-active long tailed tits. A tree creeper scuttled up a slender birch trunk and a distant nuthatches fluty chirrup gave a hint that maybe spring isn't too far away. And then a robin, and another and in the distance a third uttered its thin warbling song. There is much to appreciate here; be patient and the wildlife won't disappoint.

Ranworth, photo by Mike Page

Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s visitor centre at the end of the boardwalk, unique in design and an aesthetic masterpiece, was closed for the winter, its anchor chains straining to hold the building steady against the choppy waters whipped up by a strengthening nor-Easter. But good views of the broad could still be had by taking advantage of the specially constructed raised platform nearby. From this elevated vantage point many wildfowl could be more easily seen. Rafts of wigeon had gathered to rest, the chestnut heads of the drakes glowing against the rippling grey water. These visitors from Iceland or Russia will spend much time feeding on the grazing marshes hereabouts, perhaps at Upton where Norfolk Wildlife Trust has made great strides to ensure the low lying floodplain is ideally suited to the needs to wintering wildfowl. Interspersed amongst the whistling wigeon were smaller numbers of teal, shoveler and mallard. Several cormorants, wings spread heraldic, dotted the far shore and a distant marsh harrier battled the swirling air currents in its quest to find an unwary meal to sustain it through another cold winter night. The wind here has nothing to obstruct its path - time to move and seek some shelter.

The walk back to the staithe first took us through the reed bed which although small is well managed for its surprising range of wild flowers and invertebrate life. Of course none of this was on offer today, but what glorious compensation was to be had by the sight of thousands of backlit seed heads dancing candle-like in the breeze. I've tried on several occasions to capture this atmospheric scene with my camera, but have never obtained a satisfactory image; it is only worth experiencing at first hand. It won't be long before NWT reserve staff come along to cut one side of this area of reed to allow important plants like milk parsley, beloved by the swallowtail butterfly, to flourish.

The visit ended with a cup of tea at the church cafe and a walk through the churchyard where a mole had been busy burrowing under the conservation patch. Turn left at the church gate and you complete the circuit. Ranworth is a small village but has a number of year round attractions. It is a well-functioning mosaic with Norfolk Wildlife Trust playing a key role in this true living landscape. Pay a visit, you will be well rewarded.