We’ve created a new lake and the results are fascinating

these past few months we've been hard at work restoring this flooded Quarry in the northeast of Portugal our goal here is to use all of this water to create a variety of habitats which will help improve the conditions for local wildlife and we've been busy creating a lot of new areas and features that are already transforming displays for the better and in this video I'm really excited to show you how we redirected water to form a whole new Lake flooded some new lands near the main Channel and created half a dozen or so rare Mediterranean temporary ponds which are now full of life and as I go around showing you all these features we've built I'll also be checking in on the wildlife that has moved in and putting my very amateur Wildlife photography skills to the test so this Quarry is quite the Maze and it's really hard to come up with a concise way of explaining this to you but I think if we focus on this upper area of the Quarry where we have started our work it might be possible to explain what's happening here with the water now before I start the tour I think it's useful to recap the timeline for this project the property has been dedicated to rewilding since 2021 when it changed ownership and was put under the management of our good friends at rewilding Portrait at the time we visited the area and thought the opportunity was amazing so we decided to get properly involved about a year later after getting the project management plan in place we started conducting some Edna surveys to understand what species are present in the area by filtering the water and then checking what kinds of DNA got stuck in the filters then the Earth movement started in the fall and we have two objectives that we want to achieve with this work the first one is to increase the size and variety of the flooded area which essentially means we are expanding this rare aquatic habitat with different depths of water and the second one is that we are able to hold water here for longer during the drier Seasons which means the area can support more Wildlife year round the creative brain behind all of these Earth movements is bitter who runs rewilding Portugues and I must say that in this first area we are working on he came up with some really original ideas that brought some fast results which I'm really excited to show you so now let's follow the water starting with this barrier here this is one of the barriers that we've built here and you'll be better able to see it from the Drone but essentially what it does is it stops the water from running right through right through there and instead it starts accumulating here and it accumulates and goes back all the way there this first set of barriers are blocking the water coming from this side and preventing it from going straight through the system instead we're taking it on a big detour to suit our purposes the water here here is running slowly through this wide Channel creating some shallow water pools later in the season these will become temporary ponds but more on those in a bit as you can see we had to block quite a few channels but bear in mind that these were not natural channels well none of this is which is why we feel it's okay to work on this area to maximize its potential the blocked water then flows into our first properly flooded area Okay so the next biggest barrier that we have is the last one that we showed you in that drone sequence and it's yeah this one right here and it's essentially the cork that is plugging the gap which allows the creation of uh yeah the lake back there so you can see the water would normally flow through this narrow bit here all the way down there and by stopping the flow of water there we're essentially able to create this leg and which will be temporary as we mentioned and allow the flooding of this area and it also means that the water has to go all the way around so that it gets retained in the system for longer this lake is the first major feature we created and it's worth diving in a bit deeper here in these shots Thiago took in November last year you can clearly see the area that we have now flooded it used to be mostly dry and all of this water used to run through a narrow channel there but now we have blocked its course and it has accumulated to create this small lake that is about Knee Deep and is connected to the bigger deeper Lake in the back there now of course in November this area was dry we did not bring about the winter rain but we did help it accumulate here by blocking its path so this flooding is a product of our work and naturally after it flooded some plants and animals took advantage of this unique opportunity so I've decided to come and take a closer look at this temporary Lake that we've created here and I must say it is a bit of a strange experience because yeah I'm walking in here Barefoot and it is quite slimy and I've seen a few Critters lurking in between all these plants here but yeah above all it's really cool to see that change has come about rather fast one one month ago this area was completely dry and now we have these aquatic plants here as well as a variety of animals that are already using this area I was able to stick a GoPro in the water for a closer look and I found this little guy who initially was quite nervous but then relaxed to my presence a bit this is a European pond Turtle a new threatened species that has a great time in this weapons eating animal matter and plants then we also have these beautiful aquatic plants which create what looks like miniature underwater forests and on the surface they produce these lovely white flowers which is why they're known locally as publit which means water butterfly a really appropriate name for this charming little plant well at least that is how we identified it we're currently in talks with aquatic plant experts to help us out and to properly evaluate the area and consider any potential reintroductions we also caught glimpses of other Wildlife but they were too fast for our camera skills which is of course where the Edna comes in handy it allows you to detect species which are very hard to see and serve it for we purchased and conducted Edna tests for both vertebrates and invertebrates what is living in the area and we found DNA for at least 204 species with varying degrees of certainty these results are super interesting and useful for us and I was initially going to include a breakdown in this video but while writing it I realized there's a lot to tell you here so for now if you remember you should be able to read thiago's summary of the results and the implications for our work in the updates section of your account where you can also download the actual files with the full report and then in a few days we will be releasing an in-depth dive here on YouTube on how Edna testing works and all the interesting stuff that we found lurking beneath the surface okay so back to the flooding now these deeper lakes here already existed but they flowed through this narrow channel in the middle which we decided to block as well you're probably starting to see the pattern here it's all about blocking the water's path so after the water was blocked by these two channels it was forced to go all the way around through this area here which we're leaving untouched because it's already really diverse and here finally once the water has gone around one last time we actually finally LED it through this this Gap here so then it can flow and we try to control a lot of this flow to go towards the area that will create these small temporary ponds but a lot of the water is also simply escaping back slowly into this main area which was flooded already so I'm following along the little channel that leads the water to the ponds and as you can see it's quite dry now um it essentially used to have water flowing through here when the water level was at its highest right after the rain and that's also what allows the creation of these temporary puns so essentially when the water comes it stays there for a little while and then it creates this perfect habitat for amphibians to uh to reproduce in this is where we've been finding a lot of frogs enjoying and having a great time in the Sun and without you know being afraid of predators except being afraid of us as we're trying to film them but broadly speaking they feel really safe here and it's a really good place for them to reproduce me and Tom are at best amateur wildlife filmmakers and you'd think that filming a frog in a pond would be an appropriate challenge for us because it's one of the lowest levels of difficulty but these little buggers jumped each time we got anywhere near a pond it was before we could even see them let alone film them that is until we found my favorite animal in this wetland Superstar frog with its relaxed demeanor and desire for the Limelight I must say that we initially thought that this was a frog with below average intelligence but when you really think about it letting us film it was a really smart move nice Wildlife shots mean better videos which means we can reach more people and find more members to fund this work which eventually expands the Frog's habitat now that is a smart frog right there and I must say it was lovely to spend time with our new green friend which eventually led us to a few more of its cousins these are Iberian water frogs and one of at least four species of amphibian that live here and take advantage of this opportunity the ponds are a safe haven against the invasive predatory fish that live in some of the lakes and that is the magic of the small temporary ecosystems we've created here space from fabians to their thing in the spring and secure the next generation without being bothered by carp or other fish of course they could still be scooped up by one of these gray herons that have started to return to Nest here in the spring but that is the whole point more space for frogs to reproduce is great for the frogs but also for all the other species that depend on them it's another lever that allows us to boost the biodiversity in this Quarry and as usual we find all of this work through our community through our Mossy Earth members who contribute small amounts each month to allow us to set up these kinds of rewilding projects if you're curious about helping us do this then be sure to check out our other videos and of course our website where you can sign up you can find it by typing mossy.earth or through the link in the description and in the pinned comments down below I think it's fun but above all really impactful and you get to see what your money does through the updates in your account and in videos just like this one and if that's too much of a commitment for now then subscribing liking and commenting is a great way to support us as well and I really mean that now let's check out the final area we've restored my Wildlife photography skills must have improved through the filming of our Superstar frog because as we were going to film this final area I was able to film this beauty in Flight I thought this might be a faded pincer tail dragonfly which is an endangered European species but my ID skills are not so sharp if there are any experts watching this please let me know in the comments what you think it might be so this here is the next obstacle for the water and it's the barrier that you saw who you built yesterday with the Digger and essentially what it does is it tries to stop that water over there from running essentially along the course that it has because it was quite narrow and quite deep so this barrier stops it you just also have those pipes to allow the water to run through so we've removed them and now that this barrier is here this water is essentially starting to accumulate and as it accumulates over the next few weeks it will slowly start to have to go around once again flooding a much much bigger area before it's actually able to rejoin the rest of the water over there while this might look a little bit temporary right now and these do tend to break in in the when there's a lot of rainfall it will after a bit of time start solidifying more and more and we are going to plant trees over them to essentially add to their resilience so they should become a permanent feature and it will really allow for this whole area to be flooded we built two of these barriers and the second one down here is the one which allows for the flooding of this area it's also the one which broke during the heavy rains but as I mentioned this problem will be reduced with time as the features become more permanent now remember this is just the start of this project there is a lot more to come in other areas we budgeted around 36 000 Euros so far for this project which includes the Machinery use the water passages the Edna both now and later and the staff of course and those resources should go a long way to transform this Quarry into a thriving weapon as the day was coming to an end we finally had some action in the air when a pair of storks showed up and started doing this beautiful dance but well you know my wildlife camera skills aren't that good and I can't believe I missed this moment here they were also followed by a few vultures which are ever present in this region and after all this action I decided to wrap up with some more filming of the beautiful bubbleitadagua in the lake to fully enjoy our new creation I'm really happy with this Lake and the progress that this project has made and I hope this was an interesting update for you so if you'd like to follow along and see how we continue transforming this area and how this project progresses the best thing you can do is to subscribe to our channel here on YouTube and you'll be seeing a lot more of these updates and if you'd like to fund this kind of work this and other rewilding projects that we do then the best that you can do is to head over to mossy.earth to learn all about our rewilding membership until next time cheers

Channel: Mossy Earth

Views: 1,618,970

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Id: cTTmWYVGD2I

Length: 13min 12sec (792 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 10 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/LoremasterCelery]

Does anyone know other channels like mossy earth? I need to find more rewilding content creators