Shapwick Heath wetland reserve covers over 500 hectares at the heart of the Somerset Levels and Moors. Habitats include lush green wildflower meadows; still, dark ditches; damp, secretive fens, shady, wet fern woods and open water, fringed with rustling reed beds
Until around 4,500 BC, the sea covered Shapwick Heath. When it gradually began to retreat, reed beds, followed by a mixture of sedge and fen woodlands, colonised the drying marshes. Then, as the old vegetation died and decayed, thick seams of peat were formed.
The Romans were the first to harvest peat to burn as fuel. Between April and September, when the ground was at its driest, men would cut the peat by hand, while women and children would stack the turfs to dry, before loading them onto carts or flat-bottomed boats. The peat was cut this way for hundreds of years until the 1940s, when coal became more popular. In the 1960s, peat was removed by huge machines for horticultural use, but this stopped in the 1990s. Today, these former peat pits have been transformed into a landscape of open lakes, reed beds, fens and wet woodland, and have become a hugely important area for nature conservation.
The sheer size and richness of habitats at Shapwick Heath make it a fantastic place to visit at any time of year whether geocaching or otherwise! It’s a superb place to watch wildlife, whether it’s an elusive bittern or otter lurking in the reed beds, or the fantastic, swirling flocks (murmurations) of starlings that come here to roost in winter.
Winter is also a good time to watch waterfowl, such as gadwall, shoveler and tufted duck, gathering to feed on the reserve’s lakes. Visit in spring for a cacophony of birdsong and fantastic displays of flowering plants. In the summer, hundreds of migrating hobbies visit the reserve, while families of otters are frequently seen in streams and lakes
Discovering all of the geocaches in this series will show you the diversity of flora and fauna across the reserve.
Here you are tracking down a small cliptop container containing log sheets only.
Any problems with missing or damaged containers, logs etc, please contact me via the geocaching website as soon as possible in order that this series remains in good condition.