Barle Valley

Barle Valley
Notification
	Natural England website

Barle Valley is a 1,540 acres (620 ha)

notified in its current form under the Wildlife and Countryside Act in 1988. The site includes the Somerset Wildlife Trust

's Mounsey Wood Nature Reserve and the Knaplock and North Barton SSSI which has been notified since 1954.

Plantlife

The Barle Valley, which consists of steep sandstone slopes with acidic soils, contains large areas of ancient upland of

lichens

, with one hundred and sixty-five populations of epiphytic lichens are present, many of which are from rare species. Due to a large amount of ancient woodland indicators in Barle it gives it a very high index of ecological continuity.

Birds

The site contains a wide variety of woodland breeding birds including particularly high densities of redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus), wood warbler (Phylloscopus sibilatrix) and pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca). These are all summer migrants.

The

kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), dipper (Cinclus cinclus) and grey wagtail (Motacilla cinerea), while scrub and heath have breeding stonechat (Saxicola torquata) and whinchat

(Saxicola rubetra).

Other species

In the valley over twenty different species of butterfly have been recorded including the nationally scarce

coppices.^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b "Barle Valley" (PDF). Natural England.
^ "Barle Valley SSSI". Natural England. Retrieved 28 June 2018.

[Natural_England-1] "Barle Valley" (PDF). Natural England.

[2] "Barle Valley SSSI". Natural England. Retrieved 28 June 2018.

[1]

v t e Biological Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset
Summarised data for all sites (biological and geological)
Aller and Beer Woods Aller Hill Asham Wood Axbridge Hill and Fry's Hill Babcary Meadows Barle Valley Barrington Hill Meadows Berrow Dunes Black Down and Sampford Commons Brean Down Bridgwater Bay Briggins Moor Catcott, Edington and Chilton Moors Chancellor's Farm Cheddar Complex Cheddar Reservoir Cheddar Wood Cleeve Hill Cogley Wood Crook Peak to Shute Shelve Hill Curry and Hay Moors Deadman Draycott Sleights Dunster Park and Heathlands East Polden Grasslands Ebbor Gorge Edford Woods and Meadows Exmoor Coastal Heaths Fivehead Woods and Meadow Freshmoor Friar's Oven Ge-mare Farm Fields Great Breach and Copley Woods Grove Farm Hardington Moor Hestercombe House Holme Moor & Clean Moor King's Sedgemoor Kingdown and Middledown Kingweston Meadows Lang's Farm Langford Heathfield Langmead and Weston Level Long Lye Long Lye Meadow Longleat Woods Millwater Moorlinch Nettlecombe Park North Brewham Meadows North Curry Meadow North Exmoor North Moor Old Iron Works, Mells Perch Porlock Ridge and Saltmarsh Postlebury Wood Priddy Pools Prior's Park & Adcombe Wood Quantock Hills Quants Ringdown River Barle Rodney Stoke Roebuck Meadows Ruttersleigh Severn Estuary Shapwick Heath Sharpham Moor Plot South Exmoor Southey and Gotleigh Moors Southlake Moor Sparkford Wood St. Dunstan's Well Catchment Stowell Meadow Street Heath Tealham and Tadham Moors Thurlbear Wood and Quarrylands Twinhills Woods and Meadows Vallis Vale Walton and Ivythorn Hills West Moor West Sedgemoor Westhay Heath Westhay Moor Wet Moor Whitevine Meadows Windsor Hill Marsh Wookey Hole Woolhayes Farm
Neighbouring areas Avon Devon Dorset Wiltshire