Mere Sands Wood
UK nature reserve
Mere Sands Wood is a 105 acres (42 ha) nature reserve between the villages of Holmeswood and Rufford in west Lancashire, England, managed by The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester & North Merseyside. It lies about five miles from Ormskirk. The name derives from when the area was on the shore of Martin Mere.
Nature reserve
Situated near Rufford, Lancashire, the reserve comprises lakes, mature broadleaved and conifer woodland, sandy, wet meadows and heaths, standing on layers of sand and peat, deposited over boulder clay during the last ice age. It covers 105 acres (42 ha), and includes a visitors centre, two nature trails, six wildlife hides, and one viewing platform.
Wildlife
The reserve is visited by over 170 species of birds, 60 of which have bred there. There are also regular sightings of roe deer, stoats and foxes, a total of 17 species of mammals within the area including a small population of red squirrels. Fifteen species of dragonfly can be found at the reserve, ten of which have bred there. The woodland consists mainly of birch and oak trees with a Scots Pine plantation, where the red squirrels reside. There also 200 species of fungi found at Mere Sands.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6818882. Authority coordinates are 53.636, -2.837. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mere Sands Wood” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.