ABRAM FLASHES SSSI
 

This site guide is taken from the previous county birding website and was written by Judith Smith, a new, updated guide is currently in preparation.

This is a series of smaller subsidence flashes alongside the S and W side of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, between the Wigan Flashes and Pennington Flash. This area floods easily in winter, making the area attractive to wildfowl, but intensive shooting by two organised shoots means that there are few duck species in good numbers in the open season. From mid February onwards, the area comes into its own, as ducks such as Shelduck, Shoveler, Pochard, Teal, Gadwall and Tufted set up breeding territories, and both breeding and passage waders arrive.
Access is best from the car park at the Dover Inn (interpretive board) where the A573 crosses the canal, and a telescope is essential. The waters to the SE of the pub are generally better than those to the NW. A locked gate on the towpath at Dover prevents disabled access.
In late 2005 and early 2006, major habitat work has been carried out at both ends of this SSSI which should significantly improve it for passage and breeding birds and restore its former glories. Lightshaw Hall Flash has been dug out - it had silted up and was dry in summer - and islands made of the silt. At the western end, the Forestry Commission, who had purchased a large amount of land, have dug out a large new pool (to be named Glover's Pool as a tribute to the FC member of staff who facilitated this scheme) adjacent to Coffin Brook Flash, have tackled the reed-choked Bamfurlong Pond and are creating other wetlands and scrapes for former arable fields in the vicinity.

 
Lightshaw Flashes, part of the Abram Flashes SSSI

Dover Flash and marsh, part of the Abram Flashes