Turmennan RAMSAR

Turmennan is situated some 5km north of Downpatrick. It consists of a series of wetlands and adjoining habitat that support a wide range of plant communities and include a number of notable plant species. In addition, the invertebrate community of the wetland is important for its overall diversity and includes several rare species. The boundary to the Ramsar site is entirely coincident with Turmennan ASSI.

The site qualifies under Criterion 1 of the Ramsar Convention because it is a representative example of a natural wetland type found within its biogeographic region. The valley mire, which is in a transitional stage between fen and bog, is characterised by a broad range of surface conditions, ranging from slightly base-rich to markedly acidic. These edaphic (soil) conditions are influenced by the position of the ground water table in the surface peat layer, which is partly related to the extent of past peat cutting over the site.

The main plant community of the mire surface is formed by an extensive mixed sedge sward dominated by bottle sedge and including species such as common sedge, star sedge, ragged-robin, marsh pennywort and water horsetail. These species grow over a carpet of brown mosses dominated by Calliergon cuspidatum and Calligergon cordifolium. In places where the water is more acidic, Sphagnum bog-mosses such as Sphagnum squarrosum and Sphagnum subnitens replace the brown mosses.

The central area at Turmennan consists of swamp dominated by common reed, with associated plants such as water mint, common marsh-bedstraw, marsh cinquefoil, lesser spearwort, meadowsweet, bulrush and creeping bent. Other, more localised fen communities within the area include a mixed sedge sward dominated by lesser tussock-sedge, floating mats of bogbean and 'soakways' with the notable marsh St John's-wort prominent.

Turmennan also includes a range of other habitats that provide additional diversity. Wet heath is associated with areas of more acidic peat and is dominated by cross-leaved heath and heather, with purple moor-grass, common cottongrass and bog asphodel are also present. Scattered pockets of species-rich wet grassland are dominated by sharp-flowered rush and soft-rush.

Areas of species-rich dry grassland occur on thinner soils over rocky outcrops. The vegetation here is grass dominated with frequent herbs including cat’s-ear, common bird’s-foot-trefoil and lesser stitchwort, growing over a moss layer dominated by Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus. Small pockets of woodland and scrub are also present. In addition to some of those listed above, Turmennan contains a number of rare plants, including floating club-rush and least bur-reed. 

The diversity of wetland habitats supports a rich invertebrate community, and includes a number of locally distributed species of Odonata. The most characteristic species are the four-spotted chaser, large red damselfly, azure damselfly and variable damselfly. Turmennan is also a rich site for aquatic Coleoptera with 39 species recorded. This includes many of the uncommon and rare fen species which have been found to be characteristic of the best fen sites in Down and Armagh. Notable water beetles include Acilius canaliculatus, Gyrinus natator, Rhantus suturellus, Rhantus grapii, Hydaticus seminiger and Cymbiodyta marginellus. An uncommon species of pondskater Gerris lateralis has also been recorded.