Lake District Tourist Guide Advanced Search

HOME | Please mention this website when you call the accommodation owners - THANKS!


Lake District Wildlife
Click images to enlarge

109_peacock.jpg
Peacock at Brockwood Hall

109_lake.jpg
Lakeland Wildlife

109_sqirrell.jpg
Red Squirrel in the Lakes

Town: Lake District
Region: Lake District
County: Cumbria


Full Description: Curiously perhaps, the purer a lake is, the poorer it is in plant and animal life. So the clear and remote lakes such as Wast Water have less to interest the amateur naturalist than shallow and murky but mineral-rich lakes such as Esthwaite Water. In the poorest lakes, for instance, plant life consists mainly of algae and primitive quillwort, whereas the more silty lakes will add bulrushes, various pondweeds, and sometimes water lilies in sheltered bays. One popular highlight is the water lobelia, flowering in fine lilac profusion in midsummer.

In the animal food chain, lowly links include the freshwater shrimp, tiny leeches and flatworms and mayfly larvae. Of the lake fish, minnows and stickleback are widespread, and three related game fish too - salmon and sea trout (migrating to or from the sea), and the char. The richer lakes support eels, perch and pike as well. Two other coarse fish, roach and rudd, were probably introduced by anglers. There are two famous rarities, now protected species – the schelly, found in Ullswater and Haweswater, and the vendace, formley unique to Derwent Water and Bassenthwaite Lake, though now reintroduced into Scotland.

Lakelands aquatic mammals, such as the water vole and water shrew, generally prefer beck’s (stony brooks) to lakes, though the lucky visitor may occasionally spot an otter cavorting in a quite tarn or lake bay. Far more conspicuous is the Lake’s bird life. Three great avian fishermen have enjoyed varying fortunes in recent times – patient heron seems immune to the passing of time; kingfishers have suffered from it, and are now very rare; and the cormorant has thrived on it and become a local breeding species rather than just a regular visitor. Other notable birds, whether full-time residents or seasonal visitors, include mute swans and whooper swans (Elter Water takes its name from a Viking term meaning “swan”); grebes and gulls; sandpipers on the lake edges and diverse ducks in the shallows and Canada and grayling geese. Most celebrated of all perhaps, are the unruly coots, wintering in vast communities on reed beds in the bays of Windermere.


(id: '109') This listing has been viewed 3868 times
Please mention Let's Stay Lake District when contacting the business owner