Sunset at Hatfield Moor

A wonderful day, though very tiring! We set off just after seven in the morning, filled the car with petrol, collected Lizzy (a bit late thanks to a burst water main) and headed up to Sheffield to collect Chris. He's doing his Master's project on the aquatic invertebrates of ditches within the Humberhead Levels Nature Improvement Area. He'd already collected forty samples from agricultural ditches, but today we were going to take him to Thorne and Hatfield Moors to collect another five samples.

The Humberhead Peatlands NNR comprises Thorne, Goole, and Crowle Moors, as well as Hatfield Moors and it represents the largest area of raised bog wilderness in lowland Britain at 2,887 hectares in size. It's a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) for its habitat. and an internationally important breeding site for the nocturnal, insect-feeding nightjar which was responsible for the area being declared as a Special Protection Area (SPA) under the European Birds Directive.

Pete and I had never visited these reserves, which is partly why we'd offered to help out. We arrived at Thorne Moor a little after ten, but underestimated just how big it is, and how much walking is involved (over a mile from the car-park to the edge of the site) . The first part that we visited was a mix of reedswamp, cotton-grass, purple moor-grass, heather and areas of birch (but with a worrying amount of rhododendron in places) with various sphagnum-filled pools but relatively few accessible ditches. Chris said it reminded him of parts of Arctic Sweden, though with taller trees! We then went to an area which has been restored more recently from former peat extraction, which was much more open in character and gave a better impression of how huge the site is.

It was two-thirty before we got back to the car, gobbled down some lunch and then whipped across to Hatfield, though access via a very pot-hole ridden lane slowed us down. Daylight was already slipping away as we went in search of ditches. Unfortunately we didn't find the best route onto the open peatland and only managed to find our first ditch as the sun was setting. This site is possibly even more spectacular - huge areas of shallow water rich with sphagnum mosses and with tussock's of hare's-foot cotton-grass around the margins. It was virtually dark when we got back to the car - at one point I thought we might be benighted (a phrase that crops up on our Health and Safety Risk Assessments!)

I certainly felt very well exercised by the end of the day, but still had to drop Chris and Lizzy back in Sheffield, and then head back to Peterborough. Fortunately Pete ordered a Chinese meal on the way back which meant at least there was no cooking to do when we arrived home at eight. Next time I'd really like to visit in summer when the days area longer, and possibly stay overnight somewhere nearby :)