a

Reed Thicket


The reed thicket is the most typical, but also the most delicate and compromised, natural habitat of the reserve.
Ditch reed is a fast growing grass which can reach a man’s height and is very common, on the contrary the beautiful reed-mace more and more unusual. (Tipha latifolia).
Reeds has always been used by men as covering or straw for domestic animals; they fill the empty spaces among aquatic plants (waterlilies and nenuphars) with their rhizomatous roots preparing the ground for hydrophilous plants such as the willow and for other trees that bring wood where there used to be water.
Bladderwort is a underwater carnivorous plant that captures its prays through its bladders.
Reclamations, urbanizations and fires threat and reduce the vegetation of ditch reeds, and consequently they menace animal species which nidify and shelter among the reeds: swans (Cygnus olor), bald-coots and wild ducks are among the most common species living there.
Among the other birds living in the reed thicket, you can find shovellers, gadwalls, widgeons, dun-birds, pochards, kingfishers, bitterns, reed warblers and great reed warblers.