Black Lake is a nature reserve in

Delamere Forest Delamere Forest is a large Woodland, wood in the village of Delamere, Cheshire, Delamere in Cheshire, England. The woodland, which is managed by Forestry England, covers an area of making it the largest area of woodland in the county. It contai ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, England. It lies in the southwestern corner of the forest, just south of the Manchester–Chester railway. It is managed by the Cheshire Wildlife Trust (CWT) on behalf of the

Forestry Commission The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the management of publicly owned forests and the regulation of both public and private forestry in England. The Forestry Commission was previously also respons ...

, and as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) is monitored by

Natural England Natural England is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, ...

.Interpretative notice on site The site is designated as an SSSI because "it represents a very early stage of a '' Schwingmoor'' type basin fen and occurs in association with

dystrophic Dystrophic lakes, also known as humic lakes, are lakes that contain high amounts of humic substances and organic acids. The presence of these substances causes the water to be brown in colour and have a generally low pH of around 4.0-6.0. The p ...

open water." A ''Schwingmoor'' or quaking bog occurs when plants such as ''

Sphagnum ''Sphagnum'' is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as sphagnum moss, also bog moss and quacker moss (although that term is also sometimes used for peat). Accumulations of ''Sphagnum'' can store water, since ...

'' mosses and cotton grass ''Eriophorum'' sp. colonise the surface of a waterbody and form a

floating mat A floating mat () is a layer of mosses and other, especially stoloniferous, plants that grows out from the shore across the surface of a lake or pond. This type of habitat is protected and is designated in the European Habitats Directive as "LRT ...

of vegetation; at Black Lake the ''Sphagnum'' raft covers around half the lake surface. The SSSI (which includes the surrounding catchment area) covers an area of ; the CWT reserve is in area. The site is also noted for its uncommon dragonflies, which formerly included the white-faced darter (''Leucorrhinia dubia'').

History

The depression containing Black Lake was created by the melting of an ice-block at the end of the last Ice Age some 10,000 years ago. The lake was enlarged as a duck pond in the 1820s. By the 1940s it was completely covered by ''Sphagnum'' moss, and in 1973 had developed a hummocked appearance and had been colonised by young trees. The building of a crushed-limestone road nearby changed the acidity of the conditions and the moss ''Sphagnum cuspidatum'', which hosted the nymphs of the white-faced darter, disappeared. In 1995 the limestone material was removed, and the raft of vegetation began to recover, but the white-faced darter has not been recorded since 1997.

Key species

The following species of dragonflies and damselflies have been recorded at Black Lake: white-faced darter ('' Leucorrhinia dubia'', last recorded 1997), brown hawker ('' Aeshna grandis''), four-spotted chaser ('' Libellula quadrimaculata''), common darter ('' Sympetrum striolatum''), black darter ('' Sympetrum danae''), large red damselfly (''

Pyrrhosoma nymphula The large red damselfly (''Pyrrhosoma nymphula'') is a species of damselflies belonging to the family Coenagrionidae. It is native to the western Palearctic realm, Palearctic. Distribution This species is a mainly European damselfly, with some p ...

'') and common blue damselfly ('' Enallagma cyathigerum''). Unusual plants for the area include common sundew (''

Drosera rotundifolia ''Drosera rotundifolia'', the round-leaved sundew, roundleaf sundew, or common sundew, is a carnivorous species of flowering plant that grows in bogs, marshes and fens. One of the most widespread sundew species, it has a circumboreal distribut ...

''), white sedge ('' Carex curta''), common cottongrass (''

Eriophorum angustifolium ''Eriophorum angustifolium'', commonly known as common cottongrass or common cottonsedge, is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family, Cyperaceae. Native to North America, North Asia, and Europe, it grows on peat or acidic soils, in op ...

'') and wild cranberry (''

Vaccinium oxycoccos ''Vaccinium oxycoccos'' is a species of cranberry in the heath family. It is known as small cranberry, marshberry, bog cranberry, swamp cranberry, or (particularly in Britain) just cranberry. It occurs broadly across cooler climates in the tempe ...

'').

References

{{Reflist

External links

*Photographs at Geograph
SJ 537 709SJ 537 708SJ 538 708
Nature reserves in Cheshire Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cheshire Cheshire Wildlife Trust reserves