The massive bag I’m carrying on my way to the bus stop is filled with two pieces of kit I’ve been using a lot lately. My waders and my mud pattens. Now, I know what you’re wondering. What on Earth are mud pattens? And what could I be using them for? 

If you’re a Hampshire local, you might be familiar with the Farlington Marshes and you might have even taken a walk around this gorgeous nature reserve. Managed by Hampshire &Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, the reserve is a winter home to many migratory birds. However, something that might be less well known is that on the mudflats around the reserve, intertidal seagrass grows! 

This is where I am heading now, with my two unusual pieces of kit. As I reach the car park in front of Farlington, I spot the marine van just pulling in and wave hello to Ellie Parker, Senior Marine Officer, and Dr. Tim Ferrero, Senior Specialist, Marine Conservation at Hampshire &Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. As all three of us start to get the things we will need out of the van, volunteers start to gather around us. Anyone who’s here for the first time might seem a bit nervous, but our seasoned volunteers are quick to reassure them that this will be a really fun experience. 

We do an initial safety briefing at the top of the car park and then, dressed in waders or wellington boots, armed with body boards, buckets, and mud pattens, we start to head down to the mudflats.  

It is now time to teach the volunteers how to put on mud pattens. Tried and tested by nature’s elements and time, the 16^th-century design of the mud pattens wildfowlers we are using has never failed the marine team. Made out of a flat wooden board, with two running strips of wood on the bottom, a patten is meant to be roped on tightly to your foot, to prevent you from sinking in the mud. However, they are a bit difficult to walk in if it’s your first time having them on, which always prompts a hilarious but very effective tutorial from Tim, who encourages people to ‘channel their inner chicken!’. 

Now that everyone is trained up and ready, and after the safety briefing, we head out onto the mud, using hiking sticks or the body boards as support, until finally, we reach it: the seagrass meadow. Completely uncovered by the tide, the meadow might not seem like much at first. However, it is harbouring a very rare treasure that we are after today … seagrass seeds. 

We each plop onto a body board, laying down on the mud. After Ellie makes sure everyone knows what to look for, we get to work. Unlike our other collections over the summer, it is much harder to find the seeds. Due to the stressful conditions of this intertidal environment, the seagrass here is an ecotype of the Zostera marina found in subtidal habitats. This means that, while they are the same species, the seagrass here is much smaller and better adapted to growing in the mud.  

We all naturally arrange in a semicircle, laying on our body boards, sifting through the leaves, and working hard for every seed. Whilst hard to spot at first, there are just as many marine creatures here as in the subtidal meadows. You can find hundreds of little snails, their shells an intricate spiral, and ever so often there will be a crab peeking out from between the leaves. 

The view is beautiful from out here. The sun is setting, basking everything in its golden light, brent geese waddle around, searching for food, and everything is still and peaceful. I always think it is such a privilege to be out here, admiring mother nature in this gorgeous habitat. 

After a while, once Ellie starts to suggest it might be time to wrap things up, and we all act a little bit like kids before bedtime asking for five more minutes of fun, we start to make our way back up to the car park. Slowly, trudging through the sticky mud, we reach the top, buckets now full of precious seeds, wide smiles on our faces. And a lot of mud on our clothes. 

This is the time when we are grateful for the pressure washer in the marine van, which allows us to clean all the kit as best as we can, and sometimes, clean our clothes too! I’m joking, of course. No one would ever get muddy enough to need pressure washing! Ha ha! Can you imagine? 

(It was me. I needed pressure washing.) 

We gather all the seeds into one bucket, pop in an aeration stone, and the spathes are now ready to be transported to the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Portsmouth. They will be stored there over the winter, until they are ready for planting in the spring. 

After everyone has clean hands and is now ready to re-join polite society, we sadly part ways, making plans to meet up again on the mudflats soon!