Greater Manchester

The river valleys and canals of Greater Manchester allow wildlife to penetrate the heart of a mainly urban area.

Industry has provided a legacy of reservoirs, canals, subsidence flashes, railway sidings and industrial wastes, which have been colonised naturally by plants and animals.

The flashes of the area, formed by mining subsidence, now support many key species of wildfowl in winter and breeding birds in summer. The Wigan Flashes are home to major reedbeds and booming bitterns, one of the UK’s scarcest habitats and rarest breeding birds.
Pennington Flash and Hope Carr Nature Reserve attract around 50 Gadwall, a rare species of duck, every autumn, whilst since 1992 the county has been a habitat for a small but increasing population of Black-necked Grebes.

With only around 20 breeding localities in the whole of Britain, the chance to see this tiny water bird must rank as one of the region’s ornithological highlights.

The area’s old mill lodges and clay pits support nationally important populations of Great Crested Newts, whilst the Rochdale Canal has a population of Floating Water-plantain, a plant of European importance.