Now the hay is cut and largely baled, and we await Lammas day to start the grazing (12 August), it seemed an opportunity to point visitors to the leaflet published by the Floodplain Meadows Partnership  (FMP) about Rawcliffe Meadows and Clifton Ings, which can be downloaded as a PDF from their web site here.

Staff from the FMP have been surveying both Clifton Ings and Rawcliffe Meadows for a number of years now, and it is their cumulative botanical and hydrological data which shows the extent and quality of the different grassland communities the area has been blessed with, and it will be their advice that helps manage the sites for the best.

If additional drainage grips are required due to failure of the original drainage, or if too many nutrients are being deposited, the changes in flora on the sites will demonstrate this to the scientists carrying out the work and analysing the data.

Hay turning on Clifton Ings (c) M.Phythian 2013