Water levels are now even higher on the moor than yesterday and all the RSPB managed fields are well above target for this time of year. This did however mean that today we were able to float our tern raft back out into deeper water in the reedbed. A couple of months ago we grounded it close to the shore to allow us to carry out some maintenance work, but we'e had to wait for levels to rise again before we could get it back out. Donning our wetsuits and dusting off the old outboard motor we headed out into the freezing reedbed. Due to the very very strong wind we couldn’t quite get to where we wanted and after flailing around for a while we ended up mooring the raft out in the middle of the reedbed half way towards it’s winter storage area. We did manage to attach buoys to the anchor ropes though, which was one of our aims and with the raft moved from the shore it means we can now let some water out of the reedbed (necessary as it was almost reaching it’s maximum allowed capacity) into our Greenaways field.
We got great views of the hen harrier quartering over the moor this afternoon, flying across the north of Big Otmoor and off into the distance. Loads of fieldfare were around, with groups of lapwing, wigeon and teal filling the sky.
Hedgeline along the top of Greenaways:
Big Otmoor:
View from Common Road, Beckley. The closest wet field is Ashgrave with Big Otmoor just beyond it.