Haystacks have all but disappeared from the landscape, and until a few weeks ago weren’t something we’d thought of for the marsh.

But I was reading about traditional grassland management. Non mechanised, using scythes and pitchforks. It still happens, in Romania. There they want hay as animal food and they cut vast areas of meadow and pile up what they cut into huge haystacks. They build their haystacks very carefully so the hay stays dry and lasts all winter.

We’ve been cutting the vegetation on the marsh and generating heaps of reeds and sedges and grasses. It only became apparent after a few mornings scything and heaping stuff up that the heaps themselves might be really valuable. Not for animal fodder, but for organic matter.

Our main objective is leaving areas that we’ve cut bare and muddy. We did this last year and the explosion of wildflowers has been really exciting. It’s also great for the flocks of ducks geese snipe and pipits that come here in the winter.

But the haystacks will rot, as we don’t really want the hay, and they may have a very different value to the marsh. Life will find a niche in them, rotting is caused by life itself. Fungi and bacteria, worms and beetle larvae, and water.

Already stonechats feed on the insects and spiders on the outside. Inside all sorts of organisms will thrive, seeking food and shelter.

They’ll all be protected from the elements, they’ll munch through the heap which will become a huge compost heap, and become little ecosystems all on their own.

They will also provide refuge for voles and mice, even harvest mice. We’ve found a few harvest mouse nests which is really exciting. They can be common when things are just right for them, but they’re actually quite rare now. The heat generated as the heaps decompose might make a snug home in the winter.

The haystacks will always be above the water if we build them big enough, and the water level doesn’t inundate them.

They always be islands through the winter floods.

Then they’ll slowly sink into the marsh and with the help of time they’ll end up mounds of rich organic matter. As they spread into the shallow water it will become peat, and that will vary the depth of the water. That will provide a more varied habitat. Instead of digging scrape, which many people have suggested and done elsewhere, we would end up with ridges of rich organic matter.

This would be rich in food to support the food chain. The ridges will provide opportunities for birds to feed in shallow or deeper water as they fancy. (It depends on the length of their legs and bill!).

Dragonflies will thrive too, as they find niches that suit egg laying. The hatching larva become food as they grow, and they grow as the eat smaller life forms.

It’s surprising how quickly they settle and when we go out and cut lots more vegetation we simply add it on top. We even got traditional pitchforks to throw bundles of grasses which are really fun to use, an ancient but very effective tool.

Just as importantly they’re great places to sit when we venture on to the marsh.

We could even make a heap as somewhere warm and sheltered where we could sit quietly to watch the marsh without disturbing anything, especially when we run out of energy! There’s still a lot of marsh to be cut, and it’s hard work!