Flooding Update and March WeBS Count

Firstly the reserve is unfortunately still closed. The flood waters have gone down by 2.5m, but there is still a lot of water on the trails, as well as large piles of debris and rubbish strewn around. The floating bridge needs some attention and a few stretches of fence have been badly damaged. It will be weeks rather than days before we can open again. Getting rid of the water still on site is totally dependent on the river levels dropping enough to allow it to flow out and the Trent is currently rising and falling on a daily basis. Additionally Tarmac are trying to de-water their dig area, with all this water having to pass through the reserve. Both these factors mean our reserve water levels will be fluctuating for a while to come.

The public car park is however now open and from here you can walk around the outer perimeter footpath, do be careful though as we've not walked this since the water has receded and so I there might be piles of debris on the path and some sections could be very muddy.

Because of the flooding, carrying out the March WeBS count was a bit trickier than normal. The team persevered though and returned an impressive count:

Other recent sightings have included a brambling on the seed spread near the public car park and Mediterranean gulls on the flooded fields to the right of the footpath as you walk up from the car park towards the reserve entrance.

Passerine flock on scattered seed ©Stuart Carlton