BLAKE Marsh in Kidderminster is one of those places that has had a real rollercoaster ride, when it comes to its wildlife. It was once part of an extensive wetland system but the processes of development resulted in much of it been lost to housing and then finally through infilling to create sports pitches, leaving just a tiny fragment.

Wildlife still persisted in this area but the many years where this land was just seen as waste was starting to take its toll, with willow scrub and Himalayan balsam starting to take the place of the by now nationally scarce wetland vegetation.

Fortunately, just enough was left to make sure its significance was still recognised by the district council and Blake Marsh was declared a local nature reserve some nine years ago.

Also around this time it was becoming apparent that some of the pitches that were created by tipping onto the old marsh were so damp and waterlogged they were of little use for sport. Regrettably it was beyond any one’s means to remove the many hundreds if not thousands of tons of tipped material so a different approach to managing these bits was needed.

Following the declaration of this nature reserve management works started to restore as much possible. Willow trees were felled coppiced or pollarded; the site was fenced so that cattle could graze off the Himalayan Balsam and allow light through for spring blooms and a cut and collect mowing scheme was established on one of the old sports pitches. Another benefit installed at this time was a board walk path through the marsh to help local people enjoy the beauty of the wetland. All this work was at the time invasive and the nature reserve looked for a time more like a building site than a flower rich wetland.

Eight years have now passed since this process began and the efforts of this work have started to bear fruit. The two old sports pitches have had different management, one is grazed by cattle and look after much like a traditional pasture whilst the other is cut much more like a traditional hay meadow. As such they both have vary different wildlife . The pasture is dominated by tussocks of grass, ladies smock and birds foot trefoil whilst the hay meadow has grass species interspersed with clover and wild flowers such as cowslips, ox-eye daisies and knapweed.

The marsh has come on leaps and bounds and is full of colour throughout the spring and summer. At the moment it is a blast of meadow sweet, flag irises and willowherbs and is teeming with invertebrate life. Dragonflies and damselflies flutter above the marshland blooms whilst in amongst the stems of the rushes and irises snow white moths can be seen dancing around.

However, the real wildlife gems of the marsh are those that most of us don’t get to see. Hidden in amongst the tangle of vegetation or tucked away in the darker deeper areas of the wetland are some real national scarcities including reptiles like the grass snake, rare plants like southern marsh orchid and exceptionally rare birds like the water rail.

The spectacular and rare wildlife will not survive without more management, but this fortunately is now not too invasive and it takes the form of some tree work to maintain the pollarded willow trees and the grazing of the cattle from the Wyre Forest Grazing Animal project.