Black Lake is a nature reserve in Delamere Forest,

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 county t ...

, 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, and as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) is monitored by Natural England.Interpretative notice on site The site is designated as an SSSI because "it represents a very early stage of a ''

Schwingmoor A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main Wetland#Types, types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, ...

'' 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. Due to ...

open water." A ''Schwingmoor'' or quaking bog occurs when plants such as '' Sphagnum'' mosses and cotton grass ''Eriophorum'' sp. colonise the surface of a waterbody and form a floating mat 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 The white-faced darter or small whiteface (''Leucorrhinia dubia'') is a dragonfly belonging to the genus '' Leucorrhinia'' in the family Libellulidae, characterised by red and black markings and a distinctive white patch on the head. It is foun ...

(''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 ''Leucorrhinia'' is a genus of dragonfly in the family Libellulidae. They are commonly called whitefaces because of their distinctive pale frons. Species Listed alphabetically. References External links * * Whitefaces PBase Whitefaces
B ...

'', last recorded 1997), brown hawker ('' Aeshna grandis''), four-spotted chaser ('' Libellula quadrimaculata''), common darter (''

Sympetrum striolatum The common darter (''Sympetrum striolatum'') is a dragonfly of the family Libellulidae native to Eurasia. It is one of the most common dragonflies in Europe, occurring in a wide variety of water bodies, though with a preference for breeding in s ...

''), black darter ('' Sympetrum danae''), large red damselfly ('' Pyrrhosoma nymphula'') and common blue damselfly (''

Enallagma cyathigerum ''Enallagma cyathigerum'' (common blue damselfly, common bluet, or northern bluet) is a species found mainly between latitudes 40°N and 72°N; It is widely distributed in the Palearctic, and the Nearctic species '' Enallagma annexum'' was at o ...

''). Unusual plants for the area include common sundew ('' Drosera rotundifolia''), white sedge (''

Carex curta ''Carex canescens'' L. (syn. ''C. cinerea'' Poll.; ''C. curta'' Gooden.) is a perennial species of plants in the family Cyperaceae growing in damp forests and wetlands. It is widespread across much of Europe, Asia, Australia, New Guinea, North Am ...

''), 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 Northern Europe, it grows on peat or acidic soil ...

'') and wild cranberry ('' Vaccinium oxycoccos'').

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