Muckle Moss NNR is mire, or ‘peat-bog’, that occupies an oval shaped depression confined between two parallel sandstone ridges. During the ice age moving sheets of ice deepened the basin; once the ice melted a lake was left behind. The lake slowly started to fill in with vegetation and acidic peat forming conditions developed, the open water eventually disappeared and the mire developed.

 

The mire surface is a saturated carpet of multicoloured bog mosses, cotton grass (the main peat forming species) and heather, along with other specialist acid adapted plants like heather, bog rosemary, cranberry and the insect eating sundew. There are unique crescent shaped pools which have formed from the splitting of the peat as it
moves slowly west east. These pools and other open water creates ideal habitat for dragonflies like black darter, common hawker and golden ringed dragonfly.

 

Surrounding the mire are a mixture of habitats including dry heath, woodlands; broadleaf and conifer, and agricultural grassland. The drier heather ridges and bog edges are good places to spot adders and emperor moths. Breeding birds on the NNR include; teal, curlew and snipe on the mire, meadow pipit, sky lark and lapwing on the grassland.