4288 x 2848 px | 36,3 x 24,1 cm | 14,3 x 9,5 inches | 300dpi
Aufnahmedatum:
7. November 2014
Weitere Informationen:
Explore the finest silver birch woodland in England and visit the famous Holme Post where you will be 2.75 metres (9.0 ft) below sea level - the lowest land point in Great Britain. If you had visited Holme Fen a few hundred years ago, you would have had a view of the largest lake in southern England - Whittlesea Mere. An impressive three miles across, it was a place for ice skating, sailing and home to many species of wildlife found nowhere else. Some of these species, including the large copper butterfly, became extinct when the mere was drained to create farmland in the 1850s. A fragment remains After drainage, an area on the Mere's southwestern shore was still too wet for farming. This became Holme Fen and survives as one of the only fragments of ancient wild fen. There are still small areas of acid grassland and heath as well as a very small piece of raised bog. However, drainage of the adjacent areas meant that this National Nature Reserve itself dried out and became the largest Silver Birch woodland in lowland England. One of the aims of the Great Fen project is to prevent further damage to this habitat by ceasing to drain the surrounding land.
