I think I’ve realised the mistake I have been making with this photo. I’ve tried it several times, and although the reflection is excellent, it’s not as true as I can make it, because of the buildings in the upper part. I need to try it from a slightly different perspective.
Learning something about a thing, changes your perspective of a thing. In this case, it’s the cockle ponds. If you have been following me on facebook, or here earlier this week you would have found me getting quite excited about the fact that I had a very nice response from Gosport Borough Council about what is happening to the Cockle Ponds the picture above is across one of the ponds. A radio amateur friend told me, not long after I had clicked send on the email to the council, that the ponds were being drained to clear the weeds because the boating lakes were on the UK National Model Boating Lake Register. Only for the council to come back and say that the lakes were a Site Of Special Scientific Interest, because a rare brine shrimp lived in them, and the draining was to allow an influx of fresh water to re-balance the salinity of the lakes. Whilst I haven’t been able to identify a national register of model boating lakes, it has been very easy to identify the ponds as part of an SSSI that pretty much encompasses the whole of Portsmouth Harbour.
I confess, after I received the email from the council, I was very excited as I thought the lakes themselves were the SSSI. I was slightly defused when I did that little bit of research to find the scope of the site was as wide as it is. But then I found that there are 3 SSI’s in Gosport alone. I was even more surprised to find that there are 118 in Hampshire of which; 107 are of biological interest, 5 for geology and 6 for both. Of course, that set my mind racing – an interesting project would be to visit as many of them as I can.
Even better, is that there are 139 SSSI’s in Dorset. I must admit I was quite pleased about that (that there were more in Dorset than Hampshire). Petty I know, but there you go.
Having found out that the filling of the Cockle Ponds is a tidal thing, and having seen the water pouring out when they lowered the sluice gates, I’ve been waiting to see the water coming in. I won’t now of course, as the pond side of the feed pipe is underwater, but I haven’t seen the creek side under water, because every time I have been for a walk this week, the tide has been at a low point. Frustrating! But looking at my tidal app appears to show high tides at 0600 for next week, so I only have to wait a few days.
Bills Posts 