Ebblake Bog & the water network
Ebblake Bog is intimately connected to Moors Valley and the Purple Haze site by water. And this is why the bog and the park's many wetlands are vulnerable to major changes in Purple Haze that would affect water flow, quantity and quality. Ebblake Bog is an acid mire in the upper valley of the Moors River (also called 'Crane River' at this point in its course). It has developed on a section of the river valley with a shallow hydraulic gradient has permitted the accumulation of relatively deep peat. Valley mires are rare habitats in lowland England, being confined mainly to The New Forest and the Poole Basin
– with a few small, outlying sites elsewhere. This type of habitat is now internationally scarce and the relatively few remaining undamaged mires, of which Ebblake Bog is one, thus assume special nature conservation importance.
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The age of the mire is unknown and the peat profile has, in part, been truncated by peat digging at some undocumented period. The mire is especially interesting ecologically because it is morphologically similar to those of the nearby New Forest, but unlike the forest, is not grazed by stock such as native cattle and ponies. Ebblake Bog has probably been in this state since at least the 1920s. The composition of the plant communities along the edges of the mire is somewhat different from those of most New Forest mires, even though the range of species present is no less great.
Most plant species characteristic of southern valley mires are present at Ebblake and are generally dispersed in zones dominated respectively by sallow Salix cinerea carr, bog myrtle Myrica gale and purple moor grass Molinia caerulea.
'Lawns' of Sphagnum moss abound . They are interspersed with flowering perennial plants such as Narthecium ossifragum, cotton grass Eriophorum angustifolium and white beak-sedge Rhynchospora alba. Sundews Drosera rotundifolia and D. intermedia. The mire remains saturated throughout the year and there are a number of shallow pools probably formed as a result of former peat diggings. Some are fed by drainage 'collects' from Purple Haze.
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Just visible in the background: a bird of prey perched on a Silver Birch tree.
Purple moor grass is more abundant throughout the mire than in the grazed mires of the New Forest. On its east side. Ebblake Bog adjoins conifer plantations which in places have failed, leaving a wet heath vegetation beyond the limits of the Sphagnum moss communities. Ebblake Bog supports a large population of the bog bush-cricket Metrioptera brachyptera and is rich in dragonflies (Odonata). The abundance of the latter, is the inspiration for Moors Valley's logo: the dragonfly (see the Moors Lake photograph below)
Ebblake Bog connects, via the Crane river and multiple water channels, to the Crane lake (in Moors Valley Country Park to the South) where here, conveniently, is a Crane looking for the next meal.
A complex hydrological system
As will evident from above, Ebblake Bog is part of a complex system of wetlands, streams, rivers, lakes, ponds and drainage channels. All this provides a multitude of habitats for millions of small reptiles, insects, animals, birds, flowering plants, grasses, mosses and trees. This is balanced network, a hierarchy where any adverse event at the top of the chain (Purple Haze being one of the high spots) has consequences – minute or catastrophic – down the line. Right now, the system works well, even alongside the hundreds of thousands of visitors to Moors Valley Country Park who derive so much pleasure from what they find.
Hundreds of drainage channels criss-cross Moors Valley Country Park
Crane lake connects to Moors Lake, also in Moors Valley Country Park. Here the lake is shown in flood – which has pleased the swan family!
Moors Lake then feeds into the Moors River (here alongside Moors Valley Country Park to the South). The river then flows through flood plains in Ashley Heath and beyond.