As part of the installation work to build our enclosure, we underwent a level of vegetation removal to make way for the fence, as well as opening up an area appropriate for the release day. After cutting, as we usually do, we collected the material and stacked it to one side – leaving it to decay naturally and provide refugia for wildlife. Between February and March, this freshly cut vegetation was a fan favourite of the beavers – with the majority of our camera footage showing them nibbling away at small sticks, twigs, and the odd branch they had pulled victoriously from a pile. Moving homes can be a stressful affair, and as new homeowners will likely attest, turning towards a quick and easy microwavable meal makes sense after you’ve spent all day furnishing your new residence. Low fuss, high efficiency. The beavers responded in kind. 

We’ve continued to monitor everything else that lives in Delta Pit

Whilst beavers are of course the main attraction, the Nene Wetlands is home to a plethora of invertebrates, mammals, plants, and an internationally significant population of overwintering and breeding birds. 

As spring has gotten well underway, so to have our monitoring efforts – which for many species span from April to September. Before our reintroduction, we worked hard to ensure we had the best “before” picture of Delta Pit we could take. To fully appreciate the impact that beavers will have on everything else inside the enclosure, it’s incredibly important to set a baseline from which to compare as we progress through their new management protocols. Now we are in the exciting nascent stages of finding out how other species will react to their impacts, and though previous reintroductions have proven the vast benefits beavers can have on an ecosystem – each iteration is different, and all of this is new for Delta Pit. 

Our volunteers underpin everything we do at WTBCN, and monitoring is no exception. The past month has been filled with Julia F’s butterfly transects, Chris and co’s bird surveys, and bat box checking from Gwen and our new Volunteer Officers, Maisie and Michael. Over the coming weeks, John and Kev will be on the hunt for terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates, followed by Julia R’s reptile surveys too. A lot of people give up a lot of their free time to enable us to better understand our environment, as well as communicating this to people in our visitor centre - a big thank you goes out to all involved! 

Off the back of these surveys, there’s also been some interesting feedback regarding the new fencing. One of the reasons for bringing the beavers into Delta Pit specifically is due to its dense, overgrown, even-aged wet woodland. It’s tricky to get around. Often you’ll find yourself ducking under branches, squeezing between tightly packed trees, or wading through chest high sedge. Thinking back to the early recce walks I took with our fencing contractors, the looks of dismay were palpable as I pointed to where we needed to travel – “You want us to go… there?” – we ventured out and one by one we fell on our backsides at various pitfalls. It’s less painful when there’s so much sedge you can’t feel the ground. Back in the present, the clearance work to facilitate the fencing has provided better access around the site for these surveys to take place. One of our volunteers noted they were able to use the fence line “very successfully” to observe the heronry located on the northern edge without causing disturbance to the birds. Hopefully we’ll have more routes to follow in the future as the beavers unlock new areas of the site, and less falling over as a result.

Our annual monitoring is also being supplemented by novel projects ran by students as part of their master’s dissertations. Shortly after we announced the reintroduction, several bright-minded individuals enquired as to whether they could utilise the enclosure as part of their research. That monitoring has now begun, an excellent example of how enclosures like this can be great sources of novel data – progressing our appreciation of what beavers can bring, as well as supporting young scientists in the process.

The continued engagement with our visitors has been fantastic

The Nene Wetlands is slightly different to any other reserve in Northants in that it is adjacent to a huge shopping complex, Rushden Lakes. The juxtaposition between busy shops and the tranquillity of the reserve is one of the things that makes Nene Wetlands so special. And there’s always something happening! This was certainly the case over the Easter holidays where our Communities and Education team hosted a number of family-friendly beaver events. The “Busy Beavers” days were a particular highlight, where our visitor centre was inundated with enthusiastic children taking it in turns to build the best beaver dam out of sand, twigs, and gravel – all demonstrated through the medium of repurposed plastic guttering. You can’t beat a good hands-on lesson! 

Our Comms & Eds team are hard at work preparing more events for the summer months for young people and adults alike, so stay tuned to our website and social media pages for all the latest updates.

Though beavers can now be reintroduced into the wild as part of a new licensing structure set out in February, for our enclosure license agreement, we run biweekly checks of the fence line to ensure the beavers are only affecting Delta Pit. This is always an enjoyable part of the week, both to see how the beavers are getting on, but also because of the conversations I have with people out on the reserve. There hasn’t been a quiet fence check to date, with at least one, but generally five or six groups of people stopping to ask how the beavers are, where they’re likely to see them, and what they’re getting up to. I can answer all three of those questions quite quickly – very well, on the east side, and felling trees. But having the opportunity to go into detail, be enthusiastic, share some facts, and learn some new ones myself is much more enjoyable. It’s great to see that the curiosity of both our visitors and members has surpassed the initial release, and the continued positivity surrounding these creatures is creating more conversations about wildlife, the environment, and the work that we do.

Here is an update from our trail cameras in Delta Pit of recent beaver activity.