Sandbach Flashes () are a group of 14

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

s west of

Sandbach Sandbach (pronounced ) is the name of a historic market town and a civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East, Cheshire, England. The civil parish contains four settlements: Sandbach itself as the largest, Elworth, Ettiley Heath ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's coun ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. The flashes were designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1963, with a total area of 1.53 km². There are a number of individual flashes including Bottom's Flash, Crabmill Flash, Elton Hall Flash, Fodens Flash, Groby's Flash, Ilse Pool, Moston Flashes, Pump House Flash, Railway Flash, Red Lane Tip and Pool, and Watch Lane Flash. Part of the site is managed by the Sandbach Flashes Joint Management Committee.

Description of site

Sandbach Flashes consists of a number of pools formed as a result of subsidence due to the

solution Solution may refer to: * Solution (chemistry), a mixture where one substance is dissolved in another * Solution (equation), in mathematics ** Numerical solution, in numerical analysis, approximate solutions within specified error bounds * Solutio ...

of underlying salt deposits. The water varies from

freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does in ...

, chemically similar to other Cheshire meres, to highly saline. Most of the flashes are surrounded by semi-improved or improved grassland. Fodens Flash is partly surrounded by wet

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

Biodiversity

Inland saline habitats such as those present at Sandbach Flashes are extremely rare in Britain and support unusual communities of plants and animals. Due to the differing age, depth, and water chemistry, the flashes show considerable variation in their plant and animal communities. The most recently formed have narrow disjunct stands of

emergent vegetation Aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in aquatic environments (saltwater or freshwater). They are also referred to as hydrophytes or macrophytes to distinguish them from algae and other microphytes. A macrophyte is a plant that g ...

dominated by great reedmace ''Typha latifolia'' and occasionally by lesser pond-sedge ''Carex acutiformis'', whilst the oldest have extensive stands of

common reed ''Phragmites australis'', known as the common reed, is a species of plant. It is a broadly distributed wetland grass that can grow up to tall. Description ''Phragmites australis'' commonly forms extensive stands (known as reed beds), which may ...

''Phragmites australis''. At Fodens Flash the emergent vegetation grades into

fen A fen is a type of peat-accumulating wetland fed by mineral-rich ground or surface water. It is one of the main types of wetlands along with marshes, swamps, and bogs. Bogs and fens, both peat-forming ecosystems, are also known as mires. T ...

and

wet woodland A wet woodland is a type of plant community. It is a biodiversity habitat in the United Kingdom as part of the British National Vegetation Classification system. Wet woodlands occurs on poorly drained or seasonally wet soils. They may occur in riv ...

dominated by

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

''Alnus glutinosa'' and

willow Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist ...

''Salix'' spp. Wood small-reed ''

Calamagrostis epigejos ''Calamagrostis epigejos'', common names wood small-reed or bushgrass, is a species of grass in the family Poaceae which is native to Eurasia and Africa. It is found from average moisture locales to salt marsh and wet habitats.

'' is locally dominant in the ground flora here. In some areas

periodic flooding Periodicity or periodic may refer to: Mathematics * Bott periodicity theorem, addresses Bott periodicity: a modulo-8 recurrence relation in the homotopy groups of classical groups * Periodic function, a function whose output contains values t ...

occurs and species such as

water-pepper ''Persicaria hydropiper'' (syn. ''Polygonum hydropiper''), also known as water pepper, marshpepper knotweed, arse smart or tade, is a plant of the family Polygonaceae. A widespread species, ''Persicaria hydropiper'' is found in Australia, New Ze ...

''Persicaria hydropiper'',

plicate sweet-grass ''Glyceria notata'', the plicate sweet-grass or marked glyceria, is an invasive specie part of the rhizomatous family. tufted, perennial grasses in the mannagrass genus, found in all continents of the world. Its culms are 30–80 cm in ...

''Glyceria plicata'' and celery-leaved water-crowfoot ''Ranunculus sceleratus'' occur. Shore-weed ''Littorella uniflora'', a rare plant in Cheshire, is also present. The more saline flashes are fed by natural brine

springs Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season), a season of the year * Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy * Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water * Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a he ...

and contain a range of species tolerant of

brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...

water, for example, spiked water-milfoil ''Myriophyllum spicatum'', fennel-leaved pondweed ''Potamogeton pectinatus'' and horned pondweed ''Zannichellia palustris'' and the

green alga The green algae (singular: green alga) are a group consisting of the Prasinodermophyta and its unnamed sister which contains the Chlorophyta and Charophyta/ Streptophyta. The land plants ( Embryophytes) have emerged deep in the Charophyte alg ...

Enteromorpha intestinalis ''Ulva intestinalis'' is a green alga in the family Ulvaceae, known by the common names sea lettuce, green bait weed, gutweed and grass kelp. Until they were reclassified by genetic work completed in the early 2000s, the tubular members of th ...

''. Adjacent to these saline flashes are areas of

saltmarsh A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is dominated ...

vegetation containing species such as

sea aster ''Tripolium pannonicum'', called sea aster or seashore aster and often known by the synonyms ''Aster tripolium'' or ''Aster pannonicus'', is a flowering plant, native to Eurasia and northern Africa, that is confined in its distribution to salt ma ...

''Aster tripolium'', lesser sea-spurrey ''Spergularia marina'' and reflexed saltmarsh-grass ''Puccinellia distans''. A number of uncommon aquatic invertebrates occur including the

mayfly Mayflies (also known as shadflies or fishflies in Canada and the upper Midwestern United States, as Canadian soldiers in the American Great Lakes region, and as up-winged flies in the United Kingdom) are aquatic insects belonging to the order ...

'' Caenis robusta'' and the

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class G ...

'' Gyraulus laevis'', and species associated with brackish water habitats including the water boatmen ''

Sigara concinna ''Sigara'' is a genus of water boatmen in the family Corixidae. Some species within this genus are halophiles; for example, occurrences of the genus have been noted in the hypersaline Makgadikgadi Pans in Botswana.C. Michael Hogan (2008''Makg ...

'' and '' S. stagnalis'' and the shrimps '' Gammarus duebeni'' and '' G. tigrinus''. The flashes support significant numbers of

wildfowl The Anatidae are the biological family of water birds that includes ducks, geese, and swans. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on all the world's continents except Antarctica. These birds are adapted for swimming, floating o ...

and

wader 245px, A flock of Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflats in order to foraging, ...

s as migrants and winter visitors. The principal species are

wigeon The wigeons or widgeons are a group of birds, dabbling ducks currently classified in the genus '' Mareca'' along with two other species. There are three extant species of wigeon, in addition to one recently extinct species. Biology There are ...

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

lapwing Lapwings ( subfamily Vanellinae) are any of various ground-nesting birds (family Charadriidae) akin to plovers and dotterels. They range from in length, and are noted for their slow, irregular wingbeats in flight and a shrill, wailing cry. A ...

and

snipe A snipe is any of about 26 wading bird species in three genera in the family Scolopacidae. They are characterized by a very long, slender bill, eyes placed high on the head, and cryptic/ camouflaging plumage. The '' Gallinago'' snipes have a n ...

. The woodland at Fodens Flash has a rich lichen flora.

References

{{Coord, 53.13105, N, 2.41246, W, region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(SJ725594), display=title Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cheshire Sandbach Lakes and reservoirs of Cheshire Landforms of Cheshire Wetlands of England