Lower Moors (St Mary's)

File:Reed Beds, Lower Moors, St. Mary's - geograph.org.uk - 931543.jpg

Lower Moors is one of two wetlands on St Mary's and is designated as a SSSI for its wide range of wetland habitats, and also as a feeding site for passage and wintering birds. The marsh is fed by ground water and small streams forming small open pools, mire and willow scrub, and the marsh once extended from Old Town Bay to Porthloo Pool .{{cite book|last1=Cooper|first1=Andrew|title=Secret Nature of the Isles of Scilly|date=2009|publisher=Green Books|location=Dartington|isbn=978 1 903998 51 9}} As late as the 1960s there were wet fields around Porthloo Pool and Rose Hill with hemlock water-dropwort (Oenanthe crocata), lesser water-plantain (Baldellia ranunculoides) and yellow iris (Iris pseudacorus); but these fields are much dryer nowadays.{{cite book|last1=Parslow|first1=Rosemary|title=The Isles of Scilly|date=2007|publisher=HarperCollins|location=London|isbn=978-0-00-220151-3}} Lesser water-plantain has not been seen on the Isles of Scilly since the year 2000.{{cite book|last1=Bennallick|first1=Ian J|last2=French|first2=Colin N|last3=Parslow|first3=Rosemary E|title=Vascular Plants. In CISFBR Red Data Book for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly|date=2009|publisher=Croceago Press|location=Praze-an-Beeble|isbn=978 1901685 01 5|pages=105–157|edition=2nd}} The site can be entered via a short lane at Old Town, the original medieval settlement on St Mary's, or from the A3111 near Porth Mellon. The soils are wet, alluvium and peat overlying Hercynian granite bedrock. Since grazing was withdrawn some of the marsh is overgrown with abundant common reed (Phragmites australis), rushes (Juncus spp.) and grey willow (Salix cinerea). The drainage ditches, flow southward to Old Town Bay and divide the marsh into wet meadows with abundant soft rush (Juncus effusus), yellow iris and some ragged robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi) and greater bird's-foot trefoil (Lotus pedunculatus). Bramble (Rubus fruticosus) and bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) dominate the drier areas.{{cite book|last1=Louseley|first1=J E|title=Flora of the Isles of Scilly|date=1971|publisher=David & Charles|location=Newton Abbot|isbn=0 7153 5465 5}}

Lower Moors is a vital feeding area for resident birds, such as Eurasian coot, gadwall, mallard, common moorhen, Eurasian teal and various warblers. The small area of open water is important for passage snipe and water rail, while the reed beds and wet meadows are used by birds such as corncrake and spotted crake.

The first records of the short-winged cone-head was on St Agnes in 1989, confirmed in 1992 and found on Lower Moors in 1996. The eggs can be carried on vegetation as sea flotsam so it could have been established on Scilly earlier than 1989.

To most bird watchers the Isles of Scilly are associated with rare birds, migrants and vagrants. The first accepted record of a great blue heron in Britain was recorded on 7 December 2007, by Cavell Smith at Lower Moors, and subsequently added to the British List of birds by the British Ornithologists' Union Records Committee (BOURC). On 14 April 2015, Cavell Smith observed two herons from the bird-hide on Lower Moor, one was a grey heron and the other a great blue heron; the second British record (if accepted by the (BOURC)). It had since been seen at Old Town Bay, on Tresco and on Bryher.{{cite web|title=Isles of Scilly Bird Group|url=http://www.scilly-birding.co.uk/|access-date=18 April 2015}} Two previous records of the bird in Britain had had assisted passages aboard ships.{{cite web|title=BOURC/BBRC Great Blue Heron admitted to the British List|url=http://www.birdguides.com/webzine/article.asp?a=1377|website=BirdGuides|access-date=18 April 2015}}

{{Portal|Cornwall}}

• Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust
• Porth Hellick

{{Reflist|30em}}

• [https://archive.today/20120804131808/http://www.ios-wildlifetrust.org.uk/living_landscapes/our_wildlife_and_historic_sites/st_marys/lower_moors Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust]
• [http://www.sssi.naturalengland.org.uk/citation/citation_photo/1001273.pdf SSSI citation]

{{Isles of Scilly}}

{{SSSIs Cornwall biological}}

Category:Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1971

Category:Sites of Special Scientific Interest in the Isles of Scilly

Category:St Mary's, Isles of Scilly