| Site of Special Scientific Interest | |
 | |
| Area of Search | Norfolk Suffolk |
|---|---|
| Grid reference | TL 822 872 [1] |
| Interest | Biological Geological |
| Area | 18,126 hectares [1] |
| Notification | 2000 [1] |
| Location map | Magic Map |
Breckland Forest is an 18,126 hectare biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in many separate areas between Swaffham in Norfolk and Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. [1] [2] It is part of the Breckland Special Protection Area under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. [3] [4] It contains two Geological Conservation Review sites, Beeches Pit, Icklingham and High Lodge. [5] [6] Barton Mills Valley is a Local Nature Reserve in the south-west corner of the site. [7]
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man. SSSI/ASSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in the United Kingdom are based upon them, including national nature reserves, Ramsar sites, Special Protection Areas, and Special Areas of Conservation. The acronym "SSSI" is often pronounced "triple-S I".
Norfolk is a county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the northwest, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea and, to the north-west, The Wash. The county town is Norwich. With an area of 2,074 square miles (5,370 km2) and a population of 859,400, Norfolk is a largely rural county with a population density of 401 per square mile. Of the county's population, 40% live in four major built up areas: Norwich (213,000), Great Yarmouth (63,000), King's Lynn (46,000) and Thetford (25,000).
Bury St Edmunds, commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town and civil parish in the St Edmundsbury district, in the county of Suffolk, England. Bury St Edmunds Abbey is near the town centre. Bury is the seat of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich of the Church of England, with the episcopal see at St Edmundsbury Cathedral.
Woodlarks and nightjars breed on this site in internationally important numbers. There are also several nationally rare vascular plants and invertebrates on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Geological sites provide evidence of the environmental and human history of East Anglia during the Middle Pleistocene. [8]
The woodlark or wood lark is the only extant species in the lark genus Lullula. It is found across most of Europe, the Middle East, western Asia and the mountains of north Africa. It is mainly resident (non-migratory) in the west of its range, but eastern populations of this passerine bird are more migratory, moving further south in winter.
Nightjars are medium-sized nocturnal or crepuscular birds in the subfamily Caprimulginae and in the family Caprimulgidae, characterised by long wings, short legs and very short bills. They are sometimes called goatsuckers, due to the ancient folk tale that they sucked the milk from goats, or bugeaters, due to their insectivore diet. Some New World species are called nighthawks. The English word 'nightjar' originally referred to the European nightjar.
The Middle Pleistocene is a subdivision of the Pleistocene Epoch, from 781,000 to 126,000 years ago. It is preceded by the Calabrian stage, beginning with the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal, and succeeded by the Tarantian stage, taken as beginning with the last interglacial.
