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11. Clapton Moor
Grid ref: 458 735 / Area: 39.7 hectares
Set within the Gordano Valley, Clapton
moor is a fundamental part of the levels and moors landscape.
Networked with species-rich rhynes, this grassland is
important for its breeding waders and wintering wildfowl.
How to get there
We encourage visitors to use environmentally
friendly forms of transport wherever possible. Most of
our reserves are easily accessible by bicycle, with many
close to the National
Cycle Network. The Avon
Cycleway passes the entrance to Clapton Moor and there are good
bus services to the Gordano valley from major centres.
See the right hand panel for a choice of maps for this
reserve.
Alternatively, at Clapton-in-Gordano
take Clevedon Lane towards Clevedon. After two miles the
entrance to the reserve is on the right-hand side opposite
the entrance to New Farm. Clevedon Lane has narrow bends
and caution is advised. Parking is restricted. Please
do not park and block any farm or field entrances.
Access
The birds are easily disturbed and
the rhynes and wet grassland areas potentially treacherous.
Access is therefore restricted to the path that leads
to the hide, which gives excellent views over the moor.
Wildlife and conservation
Species-rich rhynes, wet pasture, fen
and hay meadows. The rhynes are full of many rare plants
such as frogbit, greater spearwort and fen pondweed along
with nationally scarce invertebrates such as hairy dragonfly
and ruddy darter.
During the spring and summer the wet
fields of the moor attract breeding lapwing, redshank
and snipe.
These timid waders find the waterlogged
conditions of the fields to their benefit because of
the readily available food source in the invertebrates.
Buzzard, peregrine and hobby have been recorded over
the reserve, the latter often chasing some of the many
swallows, martins and swifts that feed over the grassland.
Barn owl feeding corridors (areas of
long grass with a large population of small rodents)
have been created along the boundaries of the most southerly
fields in order to attract this secretive bird of prey
back to the area.
The grassland areas are kept wet by
water level control structures in the rhynes, allowing
the site to maintain a high water table during the summer
months - important for the breeding waders and wetland
plants. During the winter the reserve is deliberately
flooded to attract flocks of wildfowl and waders. This
management follows the natural flooding of the moor during
the winter months, which has in the past been reduced
through improved drainage.
Further information
This site was purchased and managed
through support from Heritage Lottery Fund, YANSEC, Countryside
Agency, Alan Evans Memorial Trust, Ritchie Charitable
Trust and public donation.
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