In our continuing process of improving the reserve we have resumed our transplanting of reeds. Last year we moved some of our established reeds to the extreme North West corner of the reserve, an area that has no public access partly because it is just an isolated field with little current value. But we hope to establish a reedbed to augment the reeds around Haverton Hole - this is where the bittern is seen.
Today we dug reeds from reedbeds near the entrance drive.
Thanks to Josh for the photo of us on a lovely, sunny Autumn day.
We then moved them to the pools where we replanted them.
Just to show that we all share the work here Josh, Ian and Linda are planting the reeds, with our Belted Galloway cattle and the Transporter bridge in the background.
Common reeds - Phragmites australis ssp. australis - form a valuable habitat and are rather rare in our region. A reedbed supports a wide range of wildlife including Bitterns, which were seen recently - see Dean's blog. Although it is native to most of the world the European subspecies (one of four in the world) is classed as an invasive alien in North America where it out competes the local reed and damages the environment.
There is more information on reeds in the link.
And the technical name? Phragmites is from the Greek for a fence, screen or breastwork - a military term, and australis just means southern.
Peter