So about a year ago, we flooded this forest
and the results were immediately mind blowing.
We recreated this super rare temporary ecosystem
that supported all kinds of different species that have been
struggling quite a bit because of the dam.
But the ultimate goal is for this to happen at least a few months
every year for many years to come.
And that is the true test that is going to determine
the success of our project here it's not just a one year thing
Which is, of course, why this spring
and this summer we've been tracking all of the flooding really closely.
And it's been a hell of a ride from the first water
moving into the wetlands to our biggest and fullest flood yet.
It's been absolutely insane.
So strap in and get ready for a proper wetland experience
This story begins in the first weeks of spring,
just as everything is starting to turn green and not much was new in our wetland
except for a few willows that BROZ planted there during the winter.
And they have painted them white
because they're less palatable to
to deer that way and it really increases their chances of survival.
And the reasoning for planting all of these different willows here
is because they essentially can't disperse too well without the flooding.
The flooding helps open the ground and then allows the willow to settle in new areas.
So we have to sort of help them out a little bit and help them spread to this area next to our channel.
We also checked out the dry channels to see how things looked like right before the flood.
In a more natural setting there would probably be
a bit more water here already, but given that these floods are simulated,
everything has to wait for the humanly scheduled dates to arrive
and the frogs clearly didn't get the message.
So we have these clutches maybe 15, 16 here of Rana dalmatina, the Agile Frog.
So you can see that the frogs basically found this
little patch of water and and all of them lay their eggs here
because as you can see, there's not much water around here.
We tried to rescue the clutches that were getting dry.
And while this scene looks quite desperate, we felt it was worth
the quick effort because we knew that upstream things were about to kick off.
So after the simulated flood began, we followed the water and got started
unclogging a series of channels and water passages
so that the flood can flow into the channel that we built.
So we're trying to get as much water as is possible and as fast as possible.
Nothing about this is natural, but neither is the dam
and this is the only lifeline that this ecosystem has.
Also, I have to note that this work should have been done
by the water management company, but instead it mostly falls to Jakub
Sigmund from BROZ, or Siggi as we like to call him.
He is the water magician that makes all of this function by keeping a close eye on things.
And after we unleashed the water, things really got going.
So this here is what I came here to find today.
The tip of the water, which is flowing down the channel.
And it's just such an exciting moment.
I've never witnessed it before and it actually moves so fast.
We're having to move back a few paces every time we tried to stop and film
it for a little while. And uh
it's just such an incredible experience to see the water moving into the landscape
it is amazing to see our channel in action bringing life to this place.
And as I show you the whole flood now,
I just want to remind you that the only reason we could create all of this,
and also our other rewilding projects is because of our Mossy Earth members.
People like you watching this video that decide to contribute
a small bit each month to make these projects happen.
And I can't stress this enough.
We're not funded by some investors, we're not funded by a huge company.
We are funded by you and we have a ton of amazing, super
impactful projects coming up, ranging from coral reefs to rainforests, oysters,
cliff ecosystems, termites in the desert, I mean, you name it,
we've been really, really broadening the scope of our work.
So if you'd like to help us out and you'd like to make an impact, then
please consider heading over to mossy.earth.
Link is in a pinned comment, link is in the description.
And to see how it all works,
you can also check out our channel trailer here on YouTube.
Now let's dive into this wetland.
So I'm back a week after our last visit with Duarte and you can see that
our channel has filled up with water.
So let's check out the forest.
The water is actually flowing in this direction
and flooding another forest in the background.
It’s a bit tricky to walk.
So the flood is going to continue for another week.
But you can see that our forest is already
completely flooded.
And further down at our second willow forest.
Things were looking really good as well.
Look at this. This is the second forest.
It's beautiful.
All the birds chirping.
Seeing Adriana enjoy this experience so much felt a bit off
until I realised what was missing.
So at this stage, the mosquitoes are pretty harmless,
making it perhaps the easiest time to visit these ecosystems.
But I couldn't spend all spring camped out in Slovakia.
So to help Adriana film this, I asked for the help of two fellow YouTubers.
Dima, a badass volunteer activist
and Patrik, a very skilled wildlife photographer.
I've created a community post on YouTube about each one,
so be sure to check them out and subscribe to them
because they make super cool videos.
Now the mosquito larvae are actually a good starting point for our story here
because they are food for other insects, for the fish
and also the tadpoles once they grow some legs.
But this is early days in the flood and the fish have not yet
arrived in significant numbers and the amphibians are yet to hatch.
Here you can see the spiral egg clutches characteristics of toads,
so probably Common European Toad or European Green Toad.
So this is quite a typical sight during floods, the snails,
as the water rises up, they come up and wait on the trees
and yeah, we have some old pictures from the fifties where you have,
you know, a trunk just just covered with snails.
Snails were in fact everywhere.
Some species actually enjoy the water, but others do their best to try to escape it
by climbing on rocks and trees dangling precariously from plants.
And even it seems, floating around in their own little boat.
There are plenty of birds in the nearby channels and riverbanks,
such as egrets, cormorants, herons and swans.
In our wetland area, we saw woodpeckers and various tiny birds
such as this Chaffinch and this acrobatic little bird,
which we think is either a Marsh or a Willow Tit.
We also caught glimpses of a Buzzard flying around and sitting on tall trees,
and our camera trap caught recorded
checking out our flooded forest, along with a few other species
such as these Mallards taking a bath and whatever this might be.
We think it's a Nutria or a Myocastor coypus, but I'm curious
to hear what you think it is, so let us know in the comments below.
The only other mammal we saw was the ever present Roe Deer, and by setting up
a microphones for a few hours, Patrik was able to record them.
And please prepare your ears.
Yeah. That is really how they sound like, they have this really weird bark.
And in addition to that, Patrik also captured the early spring atmosphere.
Wild Boar
Owls
and woodpeckers.
And in terms of amphibians, the only ones we spotted during these days
were the European Tree Frogs, which sat neatly on the reed.
So this is the last day of the flood,
from tomorrow the volumes will start dropping.
So this is the maximum water level that we'll see in our forest this spring.
Jakub even got out his fancy kit and went about gathering data
to improve flooding models because measuring the flood peak is super
useful for planning, and Lukas decided to maximize the flooding area.
Lukas decided to try and dig a small channel and see if the water
can flood that area behind him where you can see the reed.
So we'll see, the TMR map showed that the elevation is lower there.
So maybe, yeah, maybe just digging a few meters will will bring some water in that area as well.
But all of their work was in fact completely wasted
because the water was not going anywhere.
It simply kept on rising and rising until in May. It looked like this.
I’m covered in mosquitoes, it's the end of May.
And I came back to Istragov, our wetland area, to show you that,
yeah, we have some new wetlands here.
It's been raining quite heavily for the past two weeks
and what's happened is that basically our channels filled up again
and yeah started to spill out and flood this
surrounding meadows, which is really great.
It's not so pleasant to be here at the moment because
it's yeah, it's full of mosquitoes.
It's a big mosquito party here. But it's great for for the wildlife.
This place has been mostly dry since the dam was built in the nineties.
But in old photos we can see that researchers used to go here by boat back in the day.
So this can tell us a bit about what this area used to look like.
This is the most amount of water that this wetland has seen in a long, long time.
So we are really glad and we're celebrating today.
Us and the mosquitoes.
So we are entering the small forest
from a different side because we couldn't access it through the channel
because the water level is just way too high.
And yeah, we are not tall enough and our waders are not tall enough.
Here you can see the pole where we left our camera trap
in the early spring floods and look at it now.
I'm really glad we didn't leave it there.
And the extra water is really impressive.
So there's our channel right there and you can see how it's
spilling out nicely
and filling up that reed area.
That is where Lukas was digging the channel.
And ultimately the water simply went over at all and flooded
a lot more than just the reed bed
I love this shot of Siggi
who's put in some sweaty hours to make all of this work.
And it's nice to see him enjoying these incredible results.
Now this looks lovely, but for you to get an idea
of the mosquitoes, Adriana did this.
oh, look at this.
Oh, my God.
Now, that's some dedication to getting the shot.
But as she mentioned, they're not just a pest around these parts. They are food.
And by this point, the tadpoles were out in full force.
Look at this explosion of life.
It is really impressive.
And of course, the tadpoles can also be a snack for others,
as Lukas captured in this pretty cool shot.
Then at the end, I found the first young European Fire-Bellied Toads of the season.
They're called Bombina bombina, and they're an endangered animal that this wetland protects.
And the one that makes this wonderful symphony.
And after Siggi analysed the data of this mega flood, this is the picture that came up.
Compare this with the model he made last year,
and you can see that the flooding potential
has really been maximized, which is really good news.
Now, for this season, we expected to have two floods
because the water management company also planned a summer flood for July.
But this flood was different.
Normally, the discharge is set at 90 cubic meters
for a few weeks with some of the barriers in the area closed.
But this time it was set to 120 cubic meters
with the barriers open, but only for three days.
This help remove the silt and the mud from the channels
so that the fish have fine gravels to lay their eggs in.
And this is really great.
However, when they closed the barrier,
they lowered the discharge to the normal level of 30 cubic meters.
This means that there was some flooding in the bigger channels,
but our smaller channel only had low water.
However, I still wanted to give you a sneak peek of how these forests look underwater.
So I went to another forest
that is linked to the same channel and that got a bit more water this time.
And this is what I have to show you.
I captured a few fish on camera, but generally they preferred
to go into the clouds of dust
that I kicked up with my feet, which made them super hard to film.
Then in the wider channels it was a bit easier because I could
actually dive in properly and I had this curious fish come quite close.
And finally they even reached the low water in our channel
where there were also a few water snails enjoying it while it lasted.
Ah well, so despite the rain, the summer flood
hasn't been nowhere nearly as impressive as the spring one.
And of course that is to be expected, it was absolutely mind blowing,
but it actually gives us a pretty neat opportunity to go
check out the forest just after the water receded and see
how all the different plants are doing and what kinds of species we can find.
In the forests the ground cover was either a thick mat
of bramble and nettles or an open patch.
This was to be expected and the mosaic of opportunities will be useful for different species.
And I managed to film what I believe to be young Agile Frogs, as well as a few grass snakes.
I’m not 100% sure what is wrong with this one.
It might have eaten the wrong thing or spent too much time in the sun.
If anyone knows, please let me know in the comments below.
So checking in here on the battle of the plants.
The invasives are still around, but they're doing worse. I've noticed them less and less
compared to the native wetland species that we would like to see here.
Only proper analysis with the drone will tell us what the progress
really is, but that is a topic for a future video
because this was definitely not drone flying weather.
So, I don't know how well you can see or hear that,
but it's absolutely hammering down
with rain right now and I can hear thunder in the distance as well.
It's one of those classic summer storms that just has so much energy.
And yeah, I think it's time for me to pack up, this was the video for this year,
I hope you enjoyed seeing this wetland come alive.
There were many people involved in this video, it was a ton of work, but it was also a ton of fun.
And also I really look forward to showing it to you again next year,
so final reminder, if you like the work that we do, then
please consider becoming a member, you can do so at mossy.earth
link in the description, link in a pinned comment down below.
And if that's a really big step for you right now, to spend some money
on rewilding projects, then please consider subscribing
to the channel, turning the bell on and watching a ton of our videos.
That really helps out too, and it costs you nothing.
So yeah, I’m gonna walk back in this lovely storm
and really enjoy this atmosphere, and I hope to see you in future videos.
Until next time. Cheers!