Frozen Vyrnwy

Just like the rest of the country, the LIFE project site at Lake Vyrnwy has been blanketed with snow for what seems like forever now! The first falls just before Christmas made the reserve look like a scene from a Christmas card.

Mike and Jude managed to get up onto the moor with Ann Humble from the Welsh Assembly Government to show her the some examples of the ditch blocking work. She did have to use a small amount of imagination when being told what the ditches and dams looked like under all of the snow.

The snow kept falling after Christmas so the ditch blocking and alien species removal have come to a grinding halt. Fortunately, the reserve assistants had worked so hard up until December that they are way ahead of schedule. They are still on target to eradicate all the self-seeding trees by the end of March. The ditch blocking has now had quite a substantial delay but the contractors are hoping to get back onto the moors as soon as possible. The hydrological monitoring has also been impossible with all of the sampling locations being frozen.

Just to give you an idea of how cold it has been here, the temperatures were so low during the first half of January that large sections of the lake began to freeze, something that has not been seen to this extent since 1986.

However you cannot deny that despite the cold and disruption the snow has brought, it has certainly made the reserve a stunning place to work and visit - if you can get here of course!