Visiting the murmuration – please park in Morris’ Bridge car park

November 24, 2021

If you’re visiting the Mosses to watch the murmuration, please do not park on the grass verges on Moss Lane – the road that leads to Morris’s Bridge. Parking on these verges may restrict emergency vehicle access to the properties at the end of this road.

The Morris’s Bridge NNR car park and overflow car park are open to visitors. There is plenty of space in the car park so please do not park on the lane.

Please be considerate of the people who live along the lane.

Planting Up This Autumn? Go peat free!

November 24, 2021

Are you potting up your Spring-flowering bulbs this Autumn? If so, please use peat-free compost. It’s an easy way you can join in the fight against the climate crisis, right in your garden.

It’s important because going peat free means less damage to our precious peatlands. Drained, dried out and damaged peatlands – including peat cut to mix into compost – account for about 5% of carbon emissions globally. That makes damaged peatland one of the worst human-caused (anthropogenic) sources of CO2 emissions (source: IUCN). On the other hand, healthy wet peatlands don’t release much carbon into the atmosphere. In fact, the Marches Mosses, right here in north Shropshire and northeast Wales, store two to three million tonnes of carbon. That’s a vast amount and more than the annual carbon emissions of the population of Shropshire.

So, when you’re visiting your local garden centre to buy your tulip, daffodil, crocus and other bulbs, choose peat-free compost to give them a healthy, environment-saving head start!

Murmuration-watching in your plans? Please park considerately.

November 19, 2021

The early winter murmuration has started, with thousands of birds swooping in the skies over Sinker’s Fields in the late afternoons. If you come out to Sinker’s Fields to watch the murmuration, please park at the Morris’ Bridge Car Park rather than on Moss Lane.

If the car park is full and you have to park on the lane, please park in a considerate manner; take care not to block our neighbours’ driveways and farm gates or the lane itself. The families living along the lane will appreciate it – and so will the birds!

Work Progressing at Shropshire Wildlife Trust’s Sinker’s Fields

November 18, 2021

Main photo credit: Alexander Sleigh

NOTE: This post contains a link to an external website.

Work is progressing at Sinker’s Fields wetland reserve, one of the best areas for wildfowl and wetland birds in North Shropshire. The works are being undertaken as part of the BogLIFE project to ensure that shallow surface water conditions can be consistently maintained across parts of the site during spring and summer periods.

This will provide favourable habitat for waders and wildfowl, aid the development of wetland vegetation and improve carbon storage on land that originally formed the edge of Whixall Moss, called lagg habitat.

Historically, the land formed as shallow peat bog at the edge of Whixall Moss and peat soils remain, meaning this is an important marginal habitat for the Mosses. This type of marginal land has been eliminated from almost all British raised bogs, making these works of considerable importance.

With the works being so new, the fields may look a bit unfinished right now, but the works are being done in a way that the landscape will take care of itself over the years. Over the winter and spring, reed beds and sedges on the bunds and pond edges will re-establish and cover the bunding.

The works being done include fencing the far perimeter of the site and creation of parking for two Blue Badge vehicles at the gate off Moss Lane. In addition, an accessible footpath to the Sinker’s Fields Hide has been laid down, as well as the concrete base for the hide itself. The hide will be installed over the winter; when it’s complete, access will be by key code, with the code provided by Shropshire Wildlife Trust on request.

Sinker’s Fields are named in honour of Charles Sinker, one of the many people instrumental in working toward the restoration of the Marches Mosses in the 1980s and ‘90s.

The fields are home to birds throughout the year, including curlew and lapwing who visit the fields from their homes on the Marches Mosses, as well as Canada goose, mallard, coot and moorhen. Many more waders and dabblers spend the winter here after flying south from their homes in northern Europe. Birdwatchers have recorded sightings of plover, teal, shelduck, and widgeon.

Recently, a grey phalarope dropped by Sinker’s Fields as well. This wader breeds in the Arctic and is sometimes seen along coastal UK after large storms; it’s unusual to see one as far inland as Sinker’s Fields. You may know it by its American name, the red phalarope, so named because its breeding plumage is bright orangey-red.

You can read more about Charles Sinker and Sinker’s Fields on the Shropshire Wildlife Trust website.

Murmuration at Sinker’s Fields – please park thoughtfully.

In autumn, starlings often murmurate in the area, roosting in the deciduous trees along the edges of the fields and the Mosses. If you come out to Sinker’s Fields to watch the murmuration, please park at the Morris’ Bridge Car Park rather than on Moss Lane.

If the car park is full and you have to park on the lane, please do take care not to block our neighbours’ driveways and farm gates or the lane itself. It’s really important that we treat the neighbours around the Mosses with respect.

So please do visit Sinker’s Fields over the winter – and throughout the year. Watch this space for news of the hide installation and let us know what birds you’ve spotted on the fields – and the Mosses, too.

Invitation to Tender – Interpretation Specialist for Marches Mosses Projects

November 16, 2021

Note: This post contains links to external websites.

Main photo credit: Stephen Barlow

The Marches Mosses BogLIFE project has announced an Invitation to Tender for an Interpretation Specialist to work on projects relating to the Marches Mosses. We’re looking for an experienced contractor to deliver several small interpretive projects by June 2022. The successful candidate must have experience of interpreting natural heritage in creative ways and, ideally, some knowledge of the Marches Mosses, or peatlands. As this site straddles the Welsh / English border some of these projects will need to be bi-lingual.

The closing date is 5pm on 10th December 2021 and quotes should be sent by email to: [email protected]

You can find out more about the ITT and how to apply here.

COP26 and the Marches Mosses

November 11, 2021

Main photo: The Marches Mosses at Dawn Credit: Stephen Barlow

What internationally-significant Shropshire and Wales project has been tackling climate change 30 years ahead of COP26?

The answer is the Marches Mosses in north Shropshire and northeast Wales. This huge peatland – 2,500 acres in total – is a significant store of carbon. Starting 30 years ago, work began to reverse the destruction of the Mosses and ensure that the carbon that’s captured in them is stored. While it took over 10,000 years to create this raised peat bog, it took less than two hundred years of draining and cutting to nearly destroy this rare habitat.

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The restoration team has been painstakingly working to re-wet the peatland. This is important because healthy wet peatlands don’t release much carbon into the atmosphere. Drained, dried out and damaged peatlands account for about 5% of carbon emissions globally, making it one of the worst human-caused (anthropogenic) sources of CO2 emissions (source: IUCN).

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COP26 aims to reduce carbon emissions globally in order to secure global net zero while protecting communities and natural habitats. One of the ways to do that is to protect and regenerate peatlands. The UK government’s Net Zero plans include millions of pounds budgeted for peat restoration.

This year the Marches Mosses – made up of Fenn’s, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses, Cadney Moss and Wem Moss – is celebrating its 30^th anniversary as a National Nature Reserve (NNR). Starting in 1991, efforts began to re-wet the peatland and restore healthy bog habitat.  The Mosses are estimated to store between two to three million tonnes of carbon – a vast amount and more than the annual carbon emissions of the population of Shropshire.

It’s not just the carbon that’s being protected on the Mosses: the ecosystem of the Mosses is being looked after, another goal of COP26. The Mosses are again home to wildlife that depend on the specialised, acidic nature of the peatland to survive – from curlews, lapwing and hobbies overhead to the 1,800 species of butterflies and other invertebrates that live on the bog – and of course the hidden superpowers of Sphagnum moss. Spagnum ensures that new peat is laid down as it grows and dies back to be pickled in the wet environment of the Mosses; this is the process that locks up carbon for many generations to come.

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The Mosses are also an important source of people’s wellbeing. They attract thousands of visitors each year, whether for scientific study or a family walk under the wide-open skies above the peatland.

Taken altogether, the Mosses might seem to be only a small corner of Shropshire and north Wales, but they are an internationally important hidden gem that is helping to meet COP26 goals.

Dr. Joan Daniels, MBE, Joins Mosses Artists in Online Talk on 11 November

November 10, 2021

Note: This post contains a link to an external website.

Main photo credit: Stephen Barlow

On Thursday 11 November at 0800 GMT, Dr. Joan Daniels, MBE, Marches Mosses BogLIFE Project Officer, will join a group of Mosses+Marshes project artists in an online discussion about the importance of habitats like the Marches Mosses.

The artists, among the group who have worked on the Arts Council funded Mosses+Marshes project, will discuss alternative ways to understand and value special environments such as our own precious Mosses. The project’s lead artists, Kim V. Goldsmith and Andrew Howe, will moderate the discussion.

You can join in the discussion by registering at eco-pulse.art.

Whether or not you join in tomorrow, you can visit the Mosses for a walk in this amazing landscape any day from dawn till dusk.

COP26 Explained

November 1, 2021

Note: This post has a link to an external website.

Main photo credit: Tim Walter

COP26 Explained

We’ve been reading about the upcoming COP26 meeting being held in Glasgow from now until 12 November 2021  But what’s it all about? Let’s start with the basics.

COP stands for the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties.

The “26” means that this is the 26^th such meeting since the COPs began with the first meeting held in Berlin in March 1995. Meetings have been held nearly every year since, although not in 2020 due to the pandemic. The “parties” are all the countries that have agreed to be part of the Convention, currently 197 countries.

A bit of history:

The process began in 1992, when countries joined an international treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This was a framework for international cooperation to combat climate change. It sought to do that by limiting average global temperature increases and the resulting climate change, and coping with impacts that were, already by 1992, inevitable.

Goals of the COP26 meeting in Glasgow

The Paris Agreement goals did not come close to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. The window for achieving this goal is closing, so the next decade – from now to 2030 – is crucial. At COP26, countries will need to go much further to keep alive the chances of meeting this goal.

The meeting will focus on negotiations involving all the 197 parties to the Convention to achieve four goals:

1. Secure global net zero by the middle of the 21^st Century and keep the 1.5 degrees global warming limit within reach.
2. Adapt to protect communities and natural habitats by protecting and restoring ecosystems and building defences and resilient infrastructure.
3. Mobilise finance to meet the promise to mobilise at least $100bn in climate finance per year.
4. Work together with governments, businesses, and civil society to meet the challenges of the climate crisis.  

The Wildlife Trusts are campaigning for stronger action to be taken by World Leaders to reduce CO2 emissions. It needs to be made more clear that nature recovery and combating climate change go hand in hand. At the Marches Mosses, we are restoring a huge peatland, which plays a key role in absorbing and storing carbon. But there are lots of other ways to use nature to help combat extreme changes in the climate of the planet. You can find out more at the Shropshire Wildlife Trust website or by visiting the Mosses for a walk in this precious landscape.

Art Trail Walk on 30 October on the Mosses – Last few places remaining – Book now!

October 25, 2021

Note: This post contains links to external websites.

The Art Trail Walk on Saturday 30 October is your last chance to see the Art Trail of sculptures on the Mosses before it’s removed. We have a very few places let for the walk, so book now – don’t miss out! Andrew Howe, Liz Turner and Keith Ashford, artists of the Mosses and Marshes project, will guide you onto Whixall Moss and through the Art Trail of sounds and sculpture.

The team will discuss how the peatland and its history has inspired the artworks both on site, and at exhibitions in Wem Town Hall and Qube, Oswestry (both open during October). They will also discuss the project’s international collaboration and links with the Macquarie Marshes in New South Wales Australia.

This event is suitable for adults and children 11yrs and above and will run from 10am – 1pm. Meet at the Natural England car park – over Morris’ Bridge and on the left.

The sound trail of immersive soundscapes is best experienced in the landscape using a smartphone and headphones. If you would like to access the sound trail please download the app ECHO to your phone before you visit.

If you can’t join the walk on Saturday, you can still visit the sound and sculpture trail on your own until the end of October. Please visit Andrew Howe’s project website for further information.

To book your place on the Art Trail Walk on Saturday 30 October, follow this link.

Last Few Days to Apply for the Trainee Placement Role – Restoring the Marches Mosses Project

October 28, 2021

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Trainee placement: Full time, 9 months, fixed term from December 2021 –  £6,000 bursary

We are looking for a trainee for the Marches Mosses BogLIFE project. Applications are still open, but only until Monday 1 November, so get your application in now!

The project aims to restore Britain’s third-largest lowland raised bog within the Fenn’s, Whixall & Bettisfield Mosses NNR and the Wem Moss SSSI, located near Whitchurch, Shropshire and Wrexham in Wales.

You will work on all aspects of the project, from practical habitat management to public engagement. You will gain valuable skills and experience which will provide a good foundation for a future career in wildlife conservation work.

The post is based at Manor House NNR Base, Natural England, Moss Lane, Whixall, Shropshire, SY13 2PD.

The LIFE project is led by Natural England working in partnership with Natural Resources Wales and Shropshire Wildlife Trust. The multi-million pound project is supported by an EU LIFE grant and The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The closing date for applications is 5:00pm on 1 November 2021. Interviews will be held during the week of 15 November 2021.

You can find more information and the application form here.