Stockport Flats - Hudson River Reserve, NY

Flora (Plant Life)

The site's subtidal shallows support communities of submerged plants, with water celery most abundant. The tidal marshes are dominated by narrowleaf cattail, wild rice, spatterdock and pickerelweed. Tidal and floodplain swamps are dominated by a mixture of deciduous forest characteristic of river bottoms.

Fauna (Animal Life)

Stockport Flats provides spawning and/or nursery ground for anadromous and freshwater fish species including alewife, blueback herring, American shad, rainbow smelt, striped bass and smallmouth bass. Waterfowl use the site as both a migrational staging area and a wintering ground. Wading, shore and song birds use it for feeding and breeding. Bank swallows and belted kingfishers nest in the sand cliffs on the southwest shore of Stockport Middle Ground.

Endangered Species

Rare species found at Stockport Flats include bald eagles, osprey, heart leaf plantain, estuary beggar ticks, kidney leaf mud-plantain and spongy arrowhead.