Last Wednesday I spent most of the day on top of Saddleworth Moor, about a mile east of the Chew Reservoir, spreading beads of Sphagnum across the moor. Sounds easy enough? Well not exactly.
The trip from the RSPB‘s Landie to the site involved roughly a mile of walking, half of which was over a heavily eroded path, and the other half being over pure open moor complete with grass tussocks, gullies, pockets of snow and deep (ish) ravines. Add to this the weather, which was horizontal, strong winds driving snow towards us at breakneck speed.
The task itself involved grabbing a previously helicoptered-in bucket of Sphagnum beads, each containing a seed, walking 150metres and chucking a handful of beads as far as you can in a wide arc every ten paces. Repeat this a dozen times and the task is done. Again the terrain this is done in is undulating, tussocky, wet and treacherous.
Altogether over 150 buckets-worth if Sphagnum was spread between eleven people (9 volunteers and two RSPB wardens). Once we were done we had to get back to the Landie, this time towing sack loads of plastic buckets, in the same conditions in which we arrived.
The idea of spreading the Sphagnum like this is to target an area of the moor without sphagnum. The sphagnum is one of the life bloods of a wet boggy moorland and has been eroded away in many areas. The sphagnum soaks up a heck of a lot of water and if left alone will eventually form peat.
Grass-roots Wildlife 
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