Wildlife
Birds include a variety of waders through the winter and migration seasons including significant numbers of black-tailed godwit, spotted redshank, greenshank and ruff. Winter also brings many ducks including pintail, shoveler, teal and wigeon, as well as small numbers of Bewick's swan and whooper swan. Birds of prey can be seen over the marsh, from the reserve or from nearby Denhall Lane; these include short-eared owl, hen harrier, marsh harrier, merlin, kestrel and peregrine falcon.
Breeding birds include good numbers of nationally declining waders such as lapwing and redshank. Avocet also breed on the new pools. Yellow wagtail, skylark, sedge warbler, reed warbler, lesser whitethroat, grasshopper warbler and reed bunting all occur. A colony of little egrets and grey herons breeds in a nearby wood.
Mammals on the reserve include harvest mouse, water vole and European hare. Daubenton's bats feed over the wetlands. Insects include the wall brown butterfly and the red-eyed damselfly.
The pools on the reserve are surrounded by reedmace, sea club-rush, grey club-rush, soft rush and hard rush. Areas of damp grassland contain marsh foxtail, floating sweet-grass, creeping bent and soft rush. Wild flowers include marsh marigold and fleabane. Whilst wild orchids such as southern marsh orchid can be found in abundance, bee orchids are also present
Read more about this topic: Inner Marsh Farm
Famous quotes containing the word wildlife:
“Russian forests crash down under the axe, billions of trees are dying, the habitations of animals and birds are layed waste, rivers grow shallow and dry up, marvelous landscapes are disappearing forever.... Man is endowed with creativity in order to multiply that which has been given him; he has not created, but destroyed. There are fewer and fewer forests, rivers are drying up, wildlife has become extinct, the climate is ruined, and the earth is becoming ever poorer and uglier.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)