Last year our wonderful volunteers dug out and widened several sections of ephemeral ditch on the floodplain at Sweet Briar Marshes. Ephemeral ponds and ditches are a natural phenomenon which dry out in late summer as water tables drop. Whilst we wanted these ditches to maintain their ephemeral nature, we also wanted them to hold open water during the springtime. This satisfies the needs of plenty of species as the habitat transforms itself in summer. We did the excavation using chromes, long forks with bent prongs.

Once finished, we had created some open ditches, one of which we’d left a small island in the middle, for a bit of visual interest. One of our volunteers claimed this island as her own, where she would install a deckchair to read and sunbathe. However, by the time the good weather arrived she may have had a hard time finding her island again. The dry spring of 2025 brought drought to Sweet Briar, making the ditches dry-up much faster than we had anticipated. The newly exposed damp soil however created perfect conditions for water pepper and nodding bur-marigold, species that completely dominated these excavated ditches. We also discovered marsh speedwell and marsh cinquefoil in these ditches, both important records for the site. Although it would have been better to see the water last for longer, which was our original hope, and to not have a drought at all, it is interesting to see how these improved ditches reacted to the extreme weather. Overall, I do think the management increased the resilience of the habitat to the drought. So, as you can imagine, we were keen to do further excavations elsewhere on the reserve.

This winter we have been focusing on a different ditch on the floodplain. Armed yet again with our chromes we have deepened and widened a 10m stretch of old ditch. While right now it looks like a hippo’s mud-bathing dream, I am optimistic that this ditch will be even more fruitful than last winter’s efforts.

This stretch of water is a tributary of our large perimeter ditch, which runs directly alongside the River Wensum. Firstly, this means it should hold water for much longer during the summer as its lower down on the flood plain as well as being connected to larger water bodies. The longer the ditch holds water the more aquatic species thrive there. Secondly, this small stretch provides a short highway for animals coming from the river into the reserve. Imagine a water vole hopping onto our reserve, before, it went straight from river to open marsh, with the next closest water source a long vulnerable dash away. Potentially quite a daunting prospect for a little rodent. Now it can venture out onto the marsh while remaining near a watery bolt hole. Besides water voles, this ditch could be a welcoming habitat to dragonflies, damselflies, frogs, toads, herons, snipes, not to mention all the various plant species that thrive in fresh water. But you will have to forgive me the little wish that this summer we get some furry brown residents along this ditch too.