Although many of our meres are on private estates there are a number that are easily visited. Cheshire Wildlife Trust manages Hatchmere, on the east fringe of Delamere Forest. As well as open water Hatchmere has extensive reed beds, peat bogs and patches of wet woodland. It is home to several nationally rare invertebrates, as well as dragonflies, damselflies and many birds. In south Cheshire the Cholmondely estate is home to Chapel Mere and Deer Park Mere, the latter fringed with damp woodland full of primeval-looking sedges and ferns.

Some of the glacial pools filled entirely with rainwater and as a consequence became too acidic for most aquatic plants. These were colonised by sphagnum mosses, which thrived in these conditions and over thousands of years formed dense peat bogs. Sphagnum has an amazing ability to soak up rain water, to the extent that these bogs actually rise above the surrounding landscape, hence the term lowland raised bog. The local name for these raised bogs is 'mosses'.

The mosses are a very fragile and beautiful habitat. They are home to many rare plants and animals, such as the greater sundew, which compensates for the lack of nutrients in the peat bogs by capturing and digesting small flies with the stick droplets on its highly modified leaves. Other rare plants include cotton grasses, bog rosemary, bog myrtle and up to eight species of sphagnum moss! The air is often alive with many different dragonflies and damselflies; some of these, such as the white-faced darter, are bog specialists and not found elsewhere. Butterflies like the green hairstreak also thrive on our mosses.

For a more indepth story, see the July 2007 issue of Cheshire Life