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Pillar and Ennerdale Fells is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Ennerdale, Cumbria, England. Protected for its biological interest, the site is named after Pillar, which at 892 metres (2,927 ft) is the eighth-highest mountain in the Lake District, and other fells in the same range. The area is 425.25 ha.[1]
The site was notified in 1991. The site includes Side Wood on the south side of Ennerdale Water, which was formerly part of the adjacent Ennerdale SSSI.[1]
Side Wood, which rises from Ennerdale Water, is a good example of an upland birch Betula pubescens – sessile oak Quercus petraea woodland. While there are higher woods in the Lake District,[2] Side Wood is important as an example of altitudinal succession. The vegetation changes from "native upland birch-oak woodland at 120 m" on the shores of the lake, through "sub-montane heaths and grasslands to montane heaths along the summit ridge at an altitude of 890 m".[1]
Above the woodland is gently sloping heathland dominated by heather, bell heather and bilberry; the associated grasses are sheep's-fescue, common bent, mat-grass, tormentil and heath bedstraw. Higher up, bilberry and grasses predominate, while on the summit ridge, where the snow lies late, mosses, sedges, lichens and viviparous fescue occur.[1]
The crags of Pillar, away from grazing sheep, are home to a lush, herb-rich upland ledge community of plants. Breeding birds on Pillar and Ennerdale Fells include buzzard, peregrine falcon, merlin, raven, wheatear, whinchat, ring ouzel and red grouse.[1]
Ennerdale is managed as a rewilding project called "Wild Ennerdale", which was established in 2003. The Wild Ennerdale Partnership gives scope for the management of this site holistically at the landscape scale.[3]
The SSSI is one of ten underpinning a Special Area of Conservation, Lake District High Fells, which was designated in 2005.[4]
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