The Mellandsvågen Nature Reserve ( no, Mellandsvågen naturreservat) is located on the western part of

Skardsøya Skardsøya is an island in Aure Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The island is located along the Trondheimsleia strait in the northeastern part of the municipality, just east of the island of Grisvågøya and north and west of ...

island in the municipality of

Aure Aure may refer to: Places France * Aure, Ardennes, a commune of the Ardennes ''département'' * Aure (river), a river in northwestern France Norway * Aure, Norway, a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county * Aure (village), a village in Aure Mun ...

Møre og Romsdal Møre og Romsdal (; en, Møre and Romsdal) is a county in the northernmost part of Western Norway. It borders the counties of Trøndelag, Innlandet, and Vestland. The county administration is located in the town of Molde, while Ålesund is the ...

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. Since 1996, the nature reserve has had the status of a

Ramsar Ramsar may refer to: * Places so named: ** Ramsar, Mazandaran, city in Iran ** Ramsar, Rajasthan, village in India * Eponyms of the Iranian city: ** Ramsar Convention concerning wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran ** Ramsar site, wetland listed in a ...

site because of its importance for migratory birds. The area received protection in 1988 "to preserve an important wetland area with its appertaining plant communities, bird life, and other wildlife," according to the conservation regulations. The Mellandsvågen Wildlife Sanctuary ( no, Mellandsvågen dyrefredningsområde), which measures , was created at the same time as a buffer zone in the land and sea area south and west of the nature reserve. The Mellandsvågen Nature Reserve is bordered to the east by the Melland Nature Reserve, which was established in 2002 and measures . The area consists of the mouth of a fjord, some islands, and a headland. The dominant landscape type is a large, well-developed, and diverse

beach meadow Beach Meadows are coastal meadows influenced by the presence of the nearby sea. Under this definition, the salinity of the air and wind is always high and the meadows are often flooded during and after stormy weather. These conditions implies t ...

community, especially south of Livsneset and around Storholmen. Behind the beach meadows there is damp heath that transitions into a nutrient-poor bog. It has rich and varied vegetation. There are no species on the national red list, but many of them are regionally rare or endangered: herbaceous seepweed (''Suaeda maritima''), Ray's knotweed (''Polygonum oxyspermum'' subsp. ''raii''), media sandspurry (''Spergularia media''), and slenderleaf pondweed (''Stuckenia filiformis''). The area is very important for overwintering waterfowl such as

loons Loons (North American English) or divers (British English, British / Irish English) are a group of aquatic birds found in much of North America and northern Eurasia. All living species of loons are members of the genus ''Gavia'', family (biolog ...

grebe Grebes () are aquatic diving birds in the order Podicipediformes . Grebes are widely distributed freshwater birds, with some species also found in marine habitats during migration and winter. Some flightless species exist as well, most notably ...

s, and

duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form t ...

s. Amateur ornithologists from

Hemne Hemne is a former municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. The municipality existed from 1838 until its dissolution in 2020 when it was incorporated into Heim Municipality. It was part of the Fosen region. The administrative centre of the mun ...

have been carrying out winter counts of birds in the reserve for several years.

References

External links

''Mijlø-direktoratet: Mellandsvågen''. Map and description of the nature reserve.

Miljøverndepartementet. 1987. ''Mellandsvågen naturreservat med tilgrensande dyrelivsfreding, Aure kommune, Møre og Romsdal fylke''. 1:20,000 map of the nature reserve.

''Forskrift om vern av Mellandsvågen naturreservat med tilgrensande dyrelivsfreding, Aure kommune, Møre og Romsdal''. 1988.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mellandsvagen Nature Reserve Nature reserves in Norway Ramsar sites in Norway Protected areas of Møre og Romsdal Aure, Norway Protected areas established in 1988