Fen's, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses National Nature Reserve

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Overview

The Fenn’s, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses NNR on the English border near Whitchurch is an internationally important raised bog. The reserve features 18 species of bog moss as well as many other characteristic bog plants such as the insect-eating round-leaved sundew. More uncommon plants include bog asphodel, cloudberry, cranberry, bog rosemary, lesser bladderwort, white-beaked sedge, and some rare mosses including the rare golden bog moss. Insects include the raft spider, the window-winged sedge caddisfly and 29 species of dragonfly and damselfly, including the white-faced darter dragonfly and rare picture-winged bog cranefly. There are also 670 different species of moth, including the purple-bordered gold, the northern footman, dingy mocha and Manchester treble-bar. The 32 species of butterfly include brimstone, green hairstreak and large heath. There are 166 recorded species of birds, including curlew, teal and shoveller. Raptors include the hen harrier and hobby and over-wintering short-eared owl. The outflow ditches of the mosses are a stronghold for watervoles.

Location

Whitchurch

About the area

Perhaps nowhere else in England will you find a county so deeply rural and with so much variety as Shropshire. Choose a clear day, climb to the top of The Wrekin, and look down on that ‘land of lost content’ so wistfully evoked by A E Housman.