Following on from Jenny’s emergency blog posting yesterday…
Langford Lowfields is essentially a big hole in the ground, a beautiful, wildlife-rich hole, but a big hole nonetheless and with us sitting adjacent to the River Trent it is no surprise that sometimes the nature reserve floods. It last happened in 2012 and it happened again a couple of days ago, with water pouring onto site along a long stretch of the flood bank. Water levels quickly rose over the next two days and we now have an extra 4m of water on site. It’s not quite reached the Beach Hut, but all the trails are deep under water and as of yesterday afternoon water was still coming over the flood bank. There were a couple of very confused looking bitterns flying around as the water was rising, but with the reed all now fully submerged the whole site has become a massive inland sea.
With most of the reserve underwater, the car park flooded and the public footpath leading up to the Beach Hut now a river, we have closed the site. We will be keeping a close eye on the situation, but the closure of the main part of the reserve may last for a while. Our water levels will drop as the Trent drops and this will take time, weeks rather than days and with more rain and storms forecast, the river could even start pouring in again. We hope the levels will have dropped before the bird breeding season kicks off, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
Photo 1 - Water pouring in over the flood bank from the river [Andy Merrick]
Photo 2 - The footpath up to the Beach Hut
Photo 3 - View looking towards the 360 viewing screen from the Beach Hut