MAPS - Part 1: introduction to the pools

I have had a plan for a while to do a photo guide to the Moore NR part of the patch and sat down again recently to have another crack at. The Car Park seemed the obvious place to start and so I began to write.

Entrance to the reserve

(Car Park is behind fence on the right)

Trouble was it became quickly apparent that there are SO many paths and pools and woods and hides at Moore that the whole thing would be come a tangle and so I had to go back to the drawing board. Chunks. What's needed I decided are chunks. An overview of where the main bits of the reserve are first, so that people new to the site can find them, followed by individual photoguides complete with what birds are about when. SO, here then is the first bit (overview of the pools) and it seemed to me MAPS were the way to go.

The Main Layout of the Reserve

OK. The above is a good place to start and you can pick one of these up from the little box by the Moore NR sign as you enter the reserve. As you will see from the leaflet, the reserve basically runs east to west and has 5 main pools;

a) Lapwing Lake (to the west of Lapwing Lane) which has 3 hides (Lapwing Lane Hide, Sedge Hide and Canal Bed Hide, which is just a screen) or as I prefer to call them (east, south and north hides)

Lapwing Lane Hide (aka east hide)

(nicked from Tony Carroll)

Sedge Hide (aka south hide)

Canal Bed Hide (aka north hide)

The remaing 4 pools are all to the east of Lapwing Lane and could be called collectively 'the eastern pools'. They are, in order from the Car Park, as follows;

b) Birchwood Pool (through the Dog Field) which has 3 hides (I tend to call the middle one the south hide).

Birchwood Pool West Hide

Birch Strip Hide (aka south hide)

Birchwood Pool East Hide

c) Pumphouse Pool (through Birch Wood) which has 2 hides (Pumphouse Hide on the western shore and Colin's Hide on the eastern shore) or as I call them west hide and east hide.

Pumphouse Hide (aka Pumphouse west hide)

Colin's Hide (aka Pumphouse east hide)

d) Millbrook Pool (further down the main track) has a single hide (Phoenix Hide, so called as it emerged from the ashes of the old roofed one that local yobs burned down) which it shares with...

Phoenix Hide (entrance)

e) Eastern Reedbed (famous in recent years for its overwintering Bittern(s).

Right, that together with the leaflet map should give you a rough indication of where things are. here are a few aerial shots with some of the paths to the various hides superimposed for further information...

MAP 1

This shows the whole patch except for the Eastern Reedbed and east river which are tucked away in  the bottom right hand corner, just off thr map. It also shows the other parts of the patch (black labels) for orientation purposes.

MAP 2

CP = Car Park    Yellow Hides are additional ones, not associated with the pools. The two top ones overlook Norton Marsh (see Upper Moss Side photo guide), the middle one (a screen) is along the path from Lapwing Lane to Bob's Bridge and overlooks the Snipe Fields on Upper Moss Side and the last is the little screen hide at the Feeding Station which is through the metal gate at the far end of Lapwing Lane and past the small murky pond on your left.

NOTE too the Angler's Pool before the swing bridge. There are no hides here and it's really just for fishermen, but you can get a good view of the water by parking on the gravely bit opposite the horse paddocks of Big Hand Ranch and nipping through the gap by the Warrington Angler's sign



MAP 3

    Yellow screen = Feeding Station

MAP 4

    Aerial view of the whole patch showing where Moore NR lies in relation to the whole...

MAPS - Part 2: introduction to the woods to follow soon...