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Wild Walk Week - Mossy meanders: day one

Bog pool at Highfield Moss - Jenny Bennion

The first day of my Wild Walk Week mossy meanders took me to Astley and Highfield Moss where I threw the world's fastest creature into a pond!

As the Communications Officer for our peatlands project, I am lucky enough to get out and about on our precious peatlands quite a lot. However, when Wild Walk Week came along I thought what better excuse to arrange a few more mossy meanders?

My first day saw me heading off to Astley Moss, which is on the border of Wigan and Salford. This SSSI site is a wonderful example of one of our rare lowland raised peat bogs and this summer saw the Great Manchester Wetlands Partnership reintroduce the large heath, or Manchester argus, butterfly back onto the bog for the first time in nearly 150 years!

Lesser bladderwort in a bog pool at Astley Moss

Lesser bladderwort at Astley Moss - Josh Styles

But this time I was here to collect a sample of lesser bladderwort, an aquatic carnivorous plant that is a specialist of acidic bog pools. This unprepossessing little plant however, has the honour of being the world’s fastest creature, able to react to its prey of aquatic insects, sucking them into bladder-like pouches where they are then digested, in less than one 10,000th of a second!

Up until just a few years ago lesser bladderwort was all but extinct in our region. But thanks to the amazing work of Josh Styles of the North West Rare Plant Initiative, a few strands were reintroduced onto Astley Moss. Now, it has taken hold to such an extent that today we were able to collect a sample to reintroduce it onto another of our peatlands from which it had disappeared.

I was accompanied by Dr Mark Champion, our Wigan Projects Manager and guru of all things peat, who helped me to scoop just a few handfuls of lesser bladderwort into transportation containers before we headed back out across the moss.

Bog pool at Highfield Moss

Bog pool at Highfield Moss - Jenny Bennion

Next, we journeyed to Highfield Moss in Leigh. This was my first visit to this lovely site, striking out across a number of arable fields and crossing a railway line before reaching the moss itself. We were now accompanied by James Grundy MP, who had shown an interest in our work in his constituency and wanted to find out more.

Burrows made by solitary bees in a sandy bank at Highfield Moss

Burrows made by solitary bees at Highfield Moss - Jenny Bennion

As we traversed the site we saw rare black darter dragonflies and the small holes that made homes for solitary bees in some of the sandy banks. Mark informed us that the sand on the site came from the spoil from the adjacent railway cutting that had started the damage to Highfield Moss back in the 1840s.

Then, as we reached the pond that was to be the lesser bladderwort’s new home, we caught a glimpse of a flash of red by our feet and knelt down to discover a gorgeous little round-leaved sundew, another of our peatlands' rare carnivorous plants.

James Grundy MP reintroducing throwing lesser bladderwort into a bog pool at Highfield Moss

James Grundy MP reintroducing lesser bladderwort to Highfield Moss - Jenny Bennion

Then came the big moment. We all took a handful of lesser bladderwort and gently threw it into one of the gorgeous bog pools that scatter the site, rippling the reflection of the sky in the still water before the bladderwort spread itself out, floating just under the surface. The site will be closely monitored over the coming months, but we are hoping that in just a few years’ time it’s numbers will have increased enough for this to maybe provide a donor population for yet another reintroduction.

So back off the moss we headed, several thousand steps under our belts and a great feeling of joy at being part of conservation in action.

Don't miss the rest of my Wild Walk Week mossy meanders at Heysham Moss and Winmarleigh Moss:

Mossy meanders: day two 

Mossy meanders: day three

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