Sunbiggin Tarn is a tarn near

Sunbiggin Sunbiggin is a hamlet in the Eden district, in the English county of Cumbria. Location It is near the villages of Raisbeck and Orton. Transport For transport there is the M6 motorway The M6 motorway is the longest motorway in the Unit ...

in Cumbria. It is in a

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 of ...

(SSSI) which also includes the surrounding

moorland Moorland or moor is a type of habitat found in upland areas in temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands and montane grasslands and shrublands biomes, characterised by low-growing vegetation on acidic soils. Moorland, nowadays, generally ...

and

limestone pavement A limestone pavement is a natural karst landform consisting of a flat, incised surface of exposed limestone that resembles an artificial pavement. The term is mainly used in the UK and Ireland, where many of these landforms have developed dist ...

of Little Asby Scar.

Site history

Site location and designation

Significant site content

Flora

common bent ''Agrostis capillaris'', the common bent, colonial bent, or browntop, is a rhizomatous and stoloniferous perennial in the grass family ( Poaceae). It is native to Eurasia and has been widely introduced in many parts of the world. Colonial be ...

, mother of thyme, sheep fescue,

Sesleria albicans ''Sesleria albicans'' is a species of perennial grass in the family Poaceae which can be found throughout Europe. Description The species is perennial and caespitose with erect and slender culms that are long. It have a ligule that goes arou ...

Galium sterneri ''Galium sterneri'' or limestone bedstraw is a plant species of the Rubiaceae. It is native to northern Europe (Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway and Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germa ...

grassland

Calluna vulgaris ''Calluna vulgaris'', common heather, ling, or simply heather, is the sole species in the genus ''Calluna'' in the flowering plant family Ericaceae. It is a low-growing evergreen shrub growing to tall, or rarely to and taller, and is found wid ...

Erica cinerea ''Erica cinerea'', the bell heather, is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae, native to western and central Europe. The plant provides a great deal of nectar for pollinators. It was rated in the top 5 for most nectar produ ...

Vaccinium myrtillus ''Vaccinium myrtillus'' or European blueberry is a holarctic species of shrub with edible fruit of blue color, known by the common names bilberry, blaeberry, wimberry, and whortleberry. It is more precisely called common bilberry or blue whortle ...

heath Scirpus cespitosus,

Erica tetralix ''Erica tetralix'', the cross-leaved heath, is a species of flowering plant in the family Ericaceae, native to western Europe, from southern Portugal to central Norway, as well as a number of boggy regions further from the coast in Central Europe ...

wet heath

Carex elata ''Carex elata'', tufted sedge, is a species in the genus ''Carex'', native to all of Europe, the Atlas Mountains of Africa, Turkey, Iran and Central Asia. It prefers to grow with its roots in water. Its cultivar 'Aurea' has gained the Royal Horti ...

Equisetum fluviatile ''Equisetum fluviatile'', the water horsetail or swamp horsetail, is a vascular plant that commonly grows in dense colonies along freshwater shorelines or in shallow water in ponds, swamps, ditches, and other sluggish or still waters with mud bo ...

Cladium mariscus ''Cladium mariscus'' is a species of flowering plant in the Cyperaceae, sedge family known by the common names swamp sawgrass, great fen-sedge, saw-sedge or sawtooth sedge. Previously it was known as elk sedge. It is native of temperate Europe an ...

, Carex rostrata,

Potentilla palustris ''Comarum palustre'' (syn. ''Potentilla palustris''), known by the common names purple marshlocks, swamp cinquefoil and marsh cinquefoil, is a common waterside shrub. It has a circumboreal distribution, occurring throughout North America, Europe, ...

, Phragmites australis swamp, sedge and reed-beds

Fauna

black-headed gull The black-headed gull (''Chroicocephalus ridibundus'') is a small gull that breeds in much of the Palearctic including Europe and also in coastal eastern Canada. Most of the population is migratory and winters further south, but some birds res ...

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 that ...

, little grebe,

osprey The osprey (''Pandion haliaetus''), , also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor reaching more than in length and across the wings. It is brown o ...

, starling, water rail,

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 t ...

Geyer's whorl snail

Geology

Dinantian Dinantian is the name of a series (stratigraphy), series or Epoch (reference date), epoch from the Lower Carboniferous system (stratigraphy), system in Europe. It can stand for a series of rocks in Europe or the time span in which they were deposit ...

Karst Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant ro ...

References

External links

*{{Commons category-inline, Sunbiggin Tarn Glacial lakes Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cumbria Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1994 Orton, Eden