Curry and Hay Moors
Curry and Hay Moors is a 472.8 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset, notified in 1992.
Curry and Hay Moors form part of the complex of grazing marshes known as the Somerset Levels and Moors. The low-lying site is situated adjacent to the River Tone which annually overtops, flooding the fields in winter. Soils are predominantly alluvial
clays overlying Altcar series peats. The flora and fauna of the ditches and rhynes is of national importance. Over 70 aquatic and bankside vascular plants have been recorded including frogbit, flowering rush, wood club-rush and lesser water-plantain. Over 100 species of aquatic invertebrates inhabit the ditches including one nationally rare soldier fly, and 13 nationally scarce species including the water beetles Agabus uliginosus, Hydaticus transversalis and Helophorus nanus.
In winter the flooded fields provide food for large numbers of waterfowl with several thousand lapwing, hundreds of snipe and smaller numbers of golden plover and dunlin regularly present. Over two hundred Bewick's swans have been recorded, making the site an internationally important wintering ground for this species. Raptor species such as short-eared owl, merlin and peregrine regularly hunt over the site in winter. Vertebrate species present include grass snake and common frog Rana temporaria. Otters are regularly recorded on the site.
The moor was flooded during the winter flooding of 2013–14 on the Somerset Levels.
