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Finchale Priory

Open Water

Lakes and ponds are historic landscape features and can support a wide variety of plants and animals, including some of Britain’s rarest species. At the end of the last ice-age, retreating ice caps gouged holes in some parts of the British landscape to form large natural lakes. Ponds have been dug in Britain since Neolithic times and until the advent of mechanised agriculture almost every field would contain a small waterbody, providing water for either livestock or crops.

pond at Crowtrees Local Nature Reserve

The plants and animals supported by a waterbody are influenced by many different factors including its size, water chemistry, geology and the adjacent land use.

A number of interesting plant species are associated with open water communities in County Durham. In waters with low levels of nutrients, species including shoreweed, common water-crowfoot and stonewort can be found, whereas richer waters contain species such as yellow waterlily, broadleaved pondweed, water-starworts and duckweeds. In the uplands natural open water habitats are restricted to small, acidic pools within the blanket bog. Fewer plants and animals can survive in these colder ponds, but they are valuable habitat to dragonflies.

The majority of open water bodies in County Durham are man made. Many of the County’s reservoirs and old quarries support large breeding populations of waterfowl including tufted duck and great crested grebe, and over wintering birds such as wigeon and goldeneye. Where the banks are shallow and bare mud is exposed, migrating wading birds such as the black-tailed godwit and green sandpiper may call in to feed.

In County Durham, natural open water bodies are few and far between. Those that do exist are usually small and often formed from river meanders or shallow depressions, which may dry out completely during the summer months. Small ponds are naturally transient landscape features and over time they become filled with silt or colonised by reeds and grasses, eventually turning to marshy grassland or swamp. Many of the County’s smaller ponds have been lost over the years, either as a result of these natural processes or more often, through deliberate drainage in order to release land for agriculture or development.

Where open water is surrounded by tall vegetation, strong populations of amphibians such as the great crested newt, which is rare throughout Europe, may be present. Fish stocks, both natural and artificial, are an integral part of County Durham’s wetlands but can prey on newt tadpoles. The loss of many of the small farm ponds has had a severe impact on great crested newt, and those ponds that remain represent a valuable resource for this species.

Open water sites of particular nature conservation importance in County Durham include: