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LATE April through to June is my favourite time to get out onto the district's wetlands and have a good look round. I try to do this quietly and usually with one other member of the Ranger Service. The quiet, slow approach to wandering across the marsh is adopted to avoid causing to much disturbance, to the marshes animal life.

It would probably, from a disturbance point of view, best to visit alone but its health and safely or just plain old common sense that step in here.

Wetlands, whether they be fen, marshes or wet woods are almost by definition marshy and at this time of year they are probably at their most squelchy.

I always spend a few moments contemplating footwear for a trek across a marsh. Walking boots will get over-topped by the marsh water in moments, wellingtons allow you to enter a little more depth of marsh but you constantly run the risk of getting your foot stuck and loosing your boot to the suction of the mud. Wellingtons also seem to give you more confidence to go places you wouldn't go with just walking boot and without fail I also seem to end up over -topping these. Waders would seem to be the answer but these can be dangerous as they encourage you to go into deep marshy spots.

So my foot wear of choice usually ends up being a pair of walking boots, but I choose an old worn out pair that I keep in the garage especially for the purpose. These have a worn out sole and countless holes that just let the marsh water straight in, by then I will have over-topped them in a few moments anyway, so wet feet is something I will just have to accept. The real plus is that unlike the wellies they stay on your feet and so allow you to squelch through marshy bits.

One of you should always carry a rope, just in case the worst happens, and make sure your mobile phone is tucked away in a chest pocket. This may sound daft but over the years I have had to be pulled out of boggy bits by rope a few times.

It may seem totally daft to explore wetlands at this time of year but there are advantages. Firstly, the mosquito and horsefly population is at a low and this believe me is a good thing, also most of the marsh plants are still low growing at this point, allowing you to easily pass over them and note the mix of species.

This allows me to make some assessment to the effect of previous year's management and whether or not the marshlands diversity is increasing or not.

Come June the plants will be up to four feet tall and it makes assessing what's there very difficult as the taller herbs obscure your view of the smaller plants.

So far I have explored Puxton Marsh and was heartened to see the vast arrays of flag iris and marsh marigolds and the dappling of pinky white lady's smock flowers.

I am a little worried over Puxton as the site was heavily hit by the summer floods and much of the site was covered in silt filled water.

I will probably regularly visit from now till late June to assess just what the impact of this has been, but so far thing look promising.

The next few days will see me visit the rest of the marshes where I hope the extra water of last summer will have had some positive effects; I almost can't wait to see.

2:08pm Monday 21st April 2008

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