| Mellandsvågen Nature Reserve | |
|---|---|
| Mellandsvågen naturreservat | |
   | |
| Nearest city | Vihalsen |
| Coordinates | 63°21′25″N8°30′0″E / 63.35694°N 8.50000°E Coordinates: 63°21′25″N8°30′0″E / 63.35694°N 8.50000°E |
| Area | 95.9 ha (237 acres) |
| Established | 1988 |
| Official name | Mellandsvågen |
| Designated | 18 March 1996 |
| Reference no. | 808 [1] |
The Mellandsvågen Nature Reserve (Norwegian : Mellandsvågen naturreservat) is located on the western part of Skardsøya island in the municipality of Aure in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. [2] Since 1996, the nature reserve has had the status of a Ramsar site because of its importance for migratory birds. [3]
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken mainly in Norway, where it is the official language. Along with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a dialect continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional varieties, and some Norwegian and Swedish dialects, in particular, are very close. These Scandinavian languages, together with Faroese and Icelandic as well as some extinct languages, constitute the North Germanic languages. Faroese and Icelandic are hardly mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them. While the two Germanic languages with the greatest numbers of speakers, English and German, have close similarities with Norwegian, neither is mutually intelligible with it. Norwegian is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Skardsøya is an island in Aure Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The 52.3-square-kilometre (20.2 sq mi) island is located along the Trondheimsleia strait in the northeastern part of the municipality, just east of the island of Grisvågøya and north and west of the mainland. The island is connected to the mainland to the east by the Dromnessund Bridge and to the south by the Torsetsund Bridge. In 2015, the island had about 332 residents living on it.
Aure is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the region of Nordmøre. The administrative centre is the village of Aure. Other villages in Aure include Gullstein, Stemshaug, Todalen, Tjeldbergodden, Arasvika, and Tømmervåg. Aure has one of the largest wooden churches in Norway, Aure Church.
The area received protection in 1988 "to preserve an important wetland area with its appertaining plant communities, bird life, and other wildlife," [4] according to the conservation regulations. The Mellandsvågen Wildlife Sanctuary (Norwegian : Mellandsvågen dyrefredningsområde), which measures 12.2 square kilometers (4.7 sq mi), was created at the same time as a buffer zone in the land and sea area south and west of the nature reserve. The Mellandsvågen Nature Reserve is bordered to the east by the Melland Nature Reserve, which was established in 2002 and measures 47 hectares (120 acres). [5]
The Melland Nature Reserve is located on the western part of Skardsøya island in the municipality of Aure in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The nature reserve has the status of a Ramsar site because of its importance for migratory birds.
The area consists of the mouth of a fjord, some islands, and a headland. The dominant landscape type is a large, well-developed, and diverse beach meadow community, especially south of Livsneset and around Storholmen. Behind the beach meadows there is damp heath that transitions into a nutrient-poor bog. It has rich and varied vegetation. There are no species on the national red list, but many of them are regionally rare or endangered: herbaceous seepweed (Suaeda maritima), Ray's knotweed (Polygonum oxyspermum subsp. raii), media sandspurry (Spergularia media), and slenderleaf pondweed (Stuckenia filiformis). The area is very important for overwintering waterfowl such as loons, grebes, and ducks.
Beach Meadows are coastal meadows influenced by the presence of the nearby sea.
Suaeda maritima is a species of flowering plant in the amaranth family known by the common names herbaceous seepweed and annual seablite. It is a yellow-green shrub with fleshy, succulent leaves and green flowers. It grows to about 35 cm in salt marshes.
Polygonum oxyspermum is a coastal species of flowering plant in the buckwheat family. It is native to Europe, primarily along the shores of the Atlantic, the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea, from France and Ireland to Finland and Russia. It is also naturalized in eastern Canada and in the US State of Maine.
Amateur ornithologists from Hemne have been carrying out winter counts of birds in the reserve for several years.
Hemne is a municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Fosen region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Kyrksæterøra. Other villages include Heim, Hellandsjøen, Holla, and Vinjeøra. The European route E39 highway runs through the southern part of Hemne.