Wildlife
Wintering wildfowl are characteristic of grazing marshes, often including large flocks of Eurasian Wigeon, Brent Goose, White-fronted Goose and Bewick's Swan. Many of these birds are hunted by predators such as Peregrine and Marsh Harrier.
In summer, waders such as Common Redshank, Eurasian Curlew and Northern Lapwing breed.
The ditches often have a range of salinity, depending on how close to the sea wall they are. The more saline ditches host specialist brackish-water plants and animals. These include, for example, the rare brackish amphipod Gammarus insensibilis and sea club-rush (Bolboschoenus maritimus). Fresher ditches may support rare animals, such as the great silver water beetle (Hydrophilus piceus) and the great raft spider (Dolomedes plantarius), and a wide range of pondweeds (Potamogeton and relatives).
The grassland vegetation usually has a fairly small number of species, but those present are often scarce elsewhere, such as sea arrowgrass (Triglochin maritimum), divided sedge (Carex divisa) and strawberry clover Trifolium fragiferum.
Read more about this topic: Grazing Marsh
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