The extraordinary weather we had over the summer months meant that many areas of the reserve became very dry. Many of our areas of open-water habitat dried up completely. The very limited amount of rainfall and exceptional temperatures led to restrictions on the water that was available to us. As we move into autumn, water availability has increased, and we’ve started to pump into Rymes Reedbed to increase water levels. This has given the relatively new team on the reserves the chance to learn the intricacies of the various water pumping systems that we have.

We initially started the pumping with our large volume diesel pump, affectionately known as ‘Bertha’. This pump is capable of pumping significant quantities of water but runs on diesel so is a less environmentally friendly option. Therefore, we started using the ‘gravity’ or ‘siphon’ pump, which is a much more sustainable method of pumping water. This pump uses the same principals as if you were to siphon fuel from a car, the source of the water needing to be higher than the destination. It requires a small electric pump along with some hand pumping initially, but once water is flowing requires no energy input and can run indefinitely.

We were soon able to fill the Rymes reservoir and were rewarded with a whole host of wildlife including an extraordinary 110 whooper swans one morning.