Black Lake Nature Reserve
Black Lake NR within Cheshire
Type	Nature reserve and SSSI
Location	Delamere Forest, Cheshire
OS grid	SJ537709
Coordinates	53°14′00″N 2°41′40″W / 53.2333°N 2.6944°W / 53.2333; -2.6944
Area	0.4 ha
Elevation	75m[1]
Operated by	Cheshire Wildlife Trust
Open	any reasonable time

Black Lake is a nature reserve in Delamere Forest, Cheshire, England. It lies in the southwestern corner of the forest, just south of the Manchester–Chester railway.^[1] It is managed by the Cheshire Wildlife Trust (CWT)^[2] on behalf of the Forestry Commission, and as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) is monitored by Natural England.^[3]

The site is designated as an SSSI because "it represents a very early stage of a Schwingmoor type basin fen and occurs in association with dystrophic open water."^[4] A Schwingmoor or quaking bog occurs when plants such as Sphagnum mosses and cotton grass Eriophorum sp. colonise the surface of a waterbody and form a floating mat of vegetation; at Black Lake the Sphagnum raft covers around half the lake surface. The SSSI (which includes the surrounding catchment area) covers an area of 1.74 hectares (4.3 acres);^[4] the CWT reserve is 0.40 hectares (0.99 acres) in area.^[2]

The site is also noted for its uncommon dragonflies, which formerly included the white-faced darter (Leucorrhinia dubia).

History

The depression containing Black Lake was created by the melting of an ice-block at the end of the last Ice Age some 10,000 years ago. The lake was enlarged as a duck pond in the 1820s. By the 1940s it was completely covered by Sphagnum moss, and in 1973 had developed a hummocked appearance and had been colonised by young trees. The building of a crushed-limestone road nearby changed the acidity of the conditions and the moss Sphagnum cuspidatum, which hosted the nymphs of the white-faced darter, disappeared. In 1995 the limestone material was removed, and the raft of vegetation began to recover, but the white-faced darter has not been recorded since 1997.^[3]

Key species

The following species of dragonflies and damselflies have been recorded at Black Lake: white-faced darter (Leucorrhinia dubia, last recorded 1997), brown hawker (Aeshna grandis), four-spotted chaser (Libellula quadrimaculata), common darter (Sympetrum striolatum), black darter (Sympetrum danae), large red damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) and common blue damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum).^[3]

Unusual plants for the area include common sundew (Drosera rotundifolia), white sedge (Carex curta), common cottongrass (Eriophorum angustifolium)^[4] and wild cranberry (Vaccinium oxycoccos).^[3]