Category Archives: Plants and Animals

Ranger’s Notebook – Restoration of Habitats

Conservation, Plants and Animals

Joanna Lawrence, who is the Ranger for Fleet Pond, writes:

Hart Countryside Service has recently been carrying out heathland restoration at Fleet Pond as well as restoring a valuable area of marsh and reedbed. Local Contractors JDB were at the Pond for a week in September carrying out the important work.

Large areas of heathland, marsh and reedbed have been lost at Fleet Pond due to the encroachment of trees and scrub. In the marsh, the restoration process involved getting rid of the dense scrub and then scraping the top layer of soil off to expose the dormant seed bank underneath.

Previous scrapes in the marshes have been very successful with some plant species that have not been seen at Fleet Pond for 30-40 years reappearing. By next spring/summer, this newest area will have more of these important species growing on it, some of which are rare in Britain or are internationally threatened.

Picture: Lesser Water Plantain, one of the rare plants in the pond marshes.

The scraped area on the dry heath will also have new shoots of heather and other heathland plants pushing through the soil by next summer, further extending this valuable and rare habitat.

Fungi Alert! What Is This?

Photography, Plants and Animals

Michelle Salter writes:

There is some weird and wonderful fungus to be found nestling in the undergrowth and growing on trees at this time of year. Walking around the pond this afternoon, I noticed lots of small, purple coloured fungi growing amongst the leaf litter, particularly along the path by Coldsteam Wood.

Can anyone identify it?

Michelle is the Secretary of The Fleet Pond Society.

Please use comments box below to provide feedback – we’d like to hear from you!

Ponies At The Pond

Plants and Animals

Four miniature Shetland ponies are grazing in the East Marsh just below the picnic area (please see previous post for map and recommended walks, all of which pass the picnic area).

The ponies names are Benson (pictured above) and (in the picture below and going from left to right): Venus (black), Andy (light brown) and Squibby (dark brown). Benson is the ringleader (and quite a character), Venus is the only female and Andy is the youngster in the pack.

Apart from providing a lot of interest to passers-by they have also done a grand job in keeping the vegetation down over the summer!

Whilst it may possibly be tempting to feed them, please don’t! They have plenty to eat in the marsh and eating carrots, apples or (heaven forbid) bread can easily make them ill, requiring them to be returned to Miller’s Ark, from where they are on loan. Miller’s Ark Farm is based at Roke, near Odiham.

The rather barren and muddy area in the above photo is actually being restored back to heathland by a process known as scraping. This involves removing the top layer of nutrient rich soil so that heathland plants can thrive in their preferred low nutrient soils. Scraping has been carried out in other areas on the heath and has been highly successful. There will be more on this in future posts.

Update:
Vicki Jull writes:
On October 9 the miniature Shetland ponies were returned to Miller’s Ark after spending the summer at Fleet Pond. Joanna Lawrence, the Fleet Pond Ranger, and myself would like to thank everyone for keeping an eye on them as well as the Belted Galloways, Murray and Jessie (when they were on Wood Lane Heath). We will be in touch again next year to let you know any animal arrival dates so you have plenty of time to see them.

Vicki is a Volunteer Looker Coordinator, reporting back to the Rangers observations from regular walkers who check the condition of the grazing animals, whether they have enough water, what they are eating and any other points of interest.

Adder Alert…

Plants and Animals

This fellow was spotted by Colin Gray recently near Fleet Pond. It was moving slowly as it was a cool morning. It was gently helped across the footpath as there were several dog walkers in the vicinity!

The marshland surrounding Fleet Pond supports a rich diversity of wetland plants. Purple and yellow loosestrife, marsh lousewort, the rarer marsh cinquefoil and many different rushes and sedges are included. These support many different insects, spiders and snails, which in turn provide food for birds, small mammals, frogs and toads. The marshes support Fleet Pond’s two snakes. The grass snake is a good swimmer and finds most of its prey in wetland areas. The adder, more usually associated with dry habitat, is often found hunting in the wetlands where it is less likely to be disturbed by people and dogs.