Castle Marshes is a 71 hectare nature reserve west of

Lowestoft Lowestoft ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk (district), East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . As the List of extreme points of the United Kingdom, most easterly UK se ...

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

. It is managed by the

Suffolk Wildlife Trust Suffolk Wildlife Trust (SWT) describes itself as the county's "nature charity – the only organisation dedicated wholly to safeguarding Suffolk's wildlife and countryside." It is a registered charity, and its headquarters is at Brooke House i ...

. It is part of the Barnby Broad and Marshes

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

the Broadland Ramsar internationally important wetland site, the Broadland

Special Protection Area A special protection area (SPA) is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and cer ...

under the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds, and The Broads

Special Area of Conservation A special area of conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the ''Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora''. They are to protect the 220 habitats and ap ...

. The site has fen, freshwater dykes and grazing marshes. Resident wildfowl include wigeons,

gadwall The gadwall (''Mareca strepera'') is a common and widespread dabbling duck in the family Anatidae. Taxonomy The gadwall was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae''. DNA studies have shown th ...

teal alt=American teal duck (male), Green-winged teal (male) Teal is a greenish-blue color. Its name comes from that of a bird—the Eurasian teal (''Anas crecca'')—which presents a similarly colored stripe on its head. The word is often used ...

s and shovelers are joined in winter by migrants when the marshes are flooded. Scarce chaser and the nationally rare

Norfolk hawker ''Aeshna isoceles'' (or ''isosceles'') is a small hawker dragonfly that is found in Europe, mostly around the Mediterranean, and the lowlands of North Africa. Its common name in English is green-eyed hawker. In the United Kingdom it is a localise ...

dragonflies breed on the site, and there are blue-tailed damselflies. There is no public access but the

Angles Way The Angles Way is a long-distance footpath in England, close to the River Waveney and River Little Ouse and thus close to the Norfolk/Suffolk border between Great Yarmouth and Thetford. Originally the Angles Way went only as far as Knettishall ...

footpath runs along the northern boundary.

References

{{Suffolk Wildlife Trust Suffolk Wildlife Trust Suffolk Broads