May I have your attention please

May I have your attention please

We’re going to have a problem here.

This is our old wet willow woodland. It’s survived droughts and extreme heat. And flood and bit of cold. It will survive the upcoming drought I’m sure.

It’s just showing Marshians that the water in the marsh is draining away fast.

The Lapwings, 8 at the moment, spoiling us with their display flights and soundtrack. If they do breed, and it looks highly likely that they will nest on the areas stomped, their brood will fail of the marsh dries up. Their numbers have declined sharply and they are one of the birds our stomping would benefit. It would be a shame to lose them if we didn’t have to.

Same with all the birds. And the frogs. And the pond life.

Also we’ll lose a ton of carbon, release it into the atmosphere. All that vegetation that has been laying in the water after it died back last year will decompose.

So not only will an ecosystem break down, the dried out marsh will add to the climate change that’s causing it to dry out.

And it may even catch fire.

So wetting it, or rewetting it seems like a good idea. Everybody that has ever shown an interest Reading’s environment knows that this is a good idea.

But nobody has ever done it.

What if

20 bags of clay got placed in the ditch by unknown Marshians?

Here’s the ditch.

Which as you can see is in the middle of the marsh. So the only water that will be there is what’s there now, and if we get a big flood the bags of clay will be underwater.

No way, no wait, he didn’t just say what I think he did did he?