91热爆

Mike Dilger looks at cottongrass - the archetypal bog plant - on Whixall Moss. They are not really a grass, they are a kind of sedge. Joan Daniels shows Mike around the raised bog. It's been forming for 10,000 years, since the end of the ice age. It hasn't always looked like this - Natural England and the Countryside Council for Wales are mending the bog after almost total devastation by commercial peat cutting. There are lots of rare insects here. It's one of the best sites in Britain for dragonflies - there are 28 species here. The white-faced darter is the one that most people come to see. Four-spot chasers also love the restored bog. Mike spots a reed bunting and Joan points out a curlew. A specialist of peat bog habitats is the raft spider, Dolomedes. It walks on the surface of the peat cuttings, listening for insects that have fallen into the water.