Floodplain forest (1 Viewer)

Does anyone know what this sort of eco-system is like?

What avifauna makes its home there etc?

I ask as my local patch is about to be dug up over the next 7 years (gravel extraction) and this is the state it will be returned to! I know it is a dwindling habitat across europe, so it has to have some advantages, but I know little else and would like to get some more info.

Cheers for your help.

I wouldn't want to be quoted on this but as I understand it, it's what the Norfolk Broads would eventually become if left to it's own accord.

Willow and Alder and Birch being the principle tree species and the damp conditions & eventual dead-wood areas allow various flies / insects / beetles, also some specialist plants to colonise.

May be worth searching through www.ukbap.org.uk

Now extremely rare as an ecosystem, due to extensive degradation by man. In general, the forests along the banks of large rivers which are regularly flooded; never really very much in Britain (due to the shortage of big rivers!), the main areas are/were along the Danube in Romania & Bulgaria, and the lower Rhine in the Netherlands, and also areas of eastern Poland and Belarus.

The most definitive birds of the ecosystem are perhaps Lesser Spotted Eagle, Black Stork and Penduline Tit, though these are also found elsewhere too.

Michael

Sounds like its going to be quite an important new development, I'd love to get any one of those 3 birds you mention Michael.

Thanks for the link Carlos.

Does anyone live near one of these ecosysstems, and what are they like to watch?