Cotterill Clough is a

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, funga, or features of geologic ...

near

Manchester Airport Manchester Airport is an international airport in Ringway, Manchester, England, south-west of Manchester city centre. In 2024, it was the third busiest airport in the United Kingdom in terms of passengers (the busiest outside of London) ...

. It is managed by the Cheshire Wildlife Trust and lies within a larger

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 ...

(SSSI). The Cotterill Brook, which flows through the reserve, is a tributary of the River Bollin. The reserve was purchased in 1934 by public subscription as a memorial to T. A. Coward (1867–1933), a famous Cheshire naturalist. It is south of Manchester city centre and adjacent to Manchester Airport.

Description

Cotterill Clough is a

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. Ravines may also be called a cleuch, dell, ...

, or clough, formed by the Cotterill Brook eroding the Keuper Marl rock. The site is mostly wooded and contains the highest biological diversity of this type of woodland growing on base rich soils in Greater Manchester.

Flora and fauna

Within the woodland there are three distinct zones. The first is on the edge of the plateau, where the woodland canopy is dominated by

downy birch ''Betula pubescens'' (syn. ''Betula alba''), commonly known as downy birch and also as moor birch, white birch, European white birch or hairy birch, is a species of deciduous tree, native and abundant throughout northern Europe and northern Asia ...

pedunculate oak ''Quercus robur'', the pedunculate oak, is a species of flowering plant in the beech and oak family, Fagaceae. It is a large tree, native to most of Europe and western Asia, and is widely cultivated in other temperate regions. It grows on soi ...

and

sycamore Sycamore is a name which has been applied to several types of trees, but with somewhat similar leaf forms. The name derives from the Ancient Greek () meaning . Species of otherwise unrelated trees known as sycamore: * ''Acer pseudoplatanus'', a ...

; lower down the valley sides is a second zone dominated by ash and

wych elm ''Ulmus glabra'', the wych elm or Scots elm, has the widest range of the European elm species, from Ireland eastwards to the Ural Mountains, and from the Arctic Circle south to the mountains of the Peloponnese and Sicily, where the species reac ...

, home to a highly diverse ground glora. Lastly, the ravine bottom supports species that prefer wetter soils such as

alder Alders are trees of the genus ''Alnus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The genus includes about 35 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, a few reaching a large size, distributed throughout the north temperate zone with a few species ex ...

and

willows Willows, also called sallows and osiers, of the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 350 species (plus numerous hybrids) of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions. Most species are known ...

of different species. The humid conditions in this zone are ideal for ferns, mosses and

liverwort Liverworts are a group of non-vascular land plants forming the division Marchantiophyta (). They may also be referred to as hepatics. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry ...

s to flourish among the herbs. A variety of woodland birds are present such as

spotted flycatcher The spotted flycatcher (''Muscicapa striata'') is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family. It breeds in most of Europe and in the Palearctic to Siberia, and is migratory, wintering in Africa and south western Asia. It is decli ...

, three species of woodpecker,

Eurasian blackcap The Eurasian blackcap (''Sylvia atricapilla'') is a bird usually known simply as the blackcap. It is a common and widespread typical warbler. It has mainly olive-grey upperparts and pale grey underparts, and differences across the five subspec ...

and

common whitethroat The common whitethroat or greater whitethroat (''Curruca communis'') is a common and widespread typical warbler which breeds throughout Europe and across much of temperate western Palearctic, Asia. This small passerine bird is strongly bird migra ...

, which breed within the reserve. The reserve also has a diverse invertebrate fauna: 79 species of spider have been recorded as well as the rare beetle species '' Dropephylla grandiloqua''.

Management

Cotteril Clough is closed to the public at the moment as there is dangerous infrastructure on site and the Cheshire Wildlife Trust also want to leave standing dead wood to encourage biodiversity.

References

{{Reflist Nature reserves in Greater Manchester Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Greater Manchester Cheshire Wildlife Trust reserves