Le Marais Audomarois... Patrimoine
		Country of diversity par excellence, Audomarois presents multiple faces of the Atlantic moors to the wetlands while passing by the forest mediums, the calcicoles lawns and the valley-slopes sets. Only miss on the great natural sets a bocage landscape and pledged mediums with the littoral. The fall of the plate of Artois in the North-West of the Park gives birth to sets of valley-slopes limestones which, according to their degree of anthropisation, gave hêtraies and lawns calcicoles. The argilo-sandy and detrital character of the East of the plate saw developing a moor of great biological and landscape interest. As for the North-western limit, it is consisted a vast depression limited to North by the Mounts of Flanders and to the South by the " slope of Saint-Omer ": it is there that is nested the Marsh Audomarois and two of the principal forest solid masses " wet " of the area. The Audomarois Marsh. It has undoubtedly been the most picturesque element of our natural inheritance, worked by the man for 13 centuries. The marsh east made up of a mosaic of water and narrowly overlapping plots of land between which curve the " water paths ". If the Western frontage of the Marsh were strongly humanized by tourism, the bank Is preserved its agro-agro-pastorale vocation mingling the légres with cauliflowers with pieces with wet meadows. The presence of water and a micro topography associated with very varied grounds developed very different facies of vegetation: - the Western marsh with its spring waters and its grasses watery, - ponds of Romelaere with its boggy wood and its roselières, - the basin of Clairmarais with its wet meadows. The vegetation is made up of at least 50 species on red list regional and national, fauna is remarkable there.
The forest solid masses They are of three great types: - the forests of Clairmarais and Eperlecques are wet oak groves-charmaies, - the forest of Tournehem and the other wood which are calcicoles hêtraies, - the wood of birch and oak on the sablo-argillaceous hillocks preserve spaces of moors, such wood of Wisques or those of the plate of Helfaut, - the wet forests certainly are diversified and richest in cash vegetable and animal. The forests of Clairmarais and Eperlecques have each one a héronnière. That of Clairmarais was used as a basis for scientific publications of Jean DORST. 354 mushroom species thrive on Clairmarais and the two solid masses offer significant effects of edges towards the Audomarois Marsh. The remarkable animal species are the Nightjar, Bondrée apivore, the Falcon small landed proprietor, the sparrows forest, the grass snake with collar or the crested Triton - the calcicoles hêtraies are of certainly more significant landscape interest to spring with flowered underwoods of floors of hyacinths. But the monospecifity of these forests involves a lower diversity of the associated animal species. One will note nevertheless the presence of the black peak and that of night raptors (Tawny owl and Hibou means-duke mainly). - wood on the hillocks argilo-sand spreaders have great disparities of quality according to the degree of conquest of wood on the moor. The presence of oligotrophic ponds and boggy moor is very favorable to the Amphibians and the reptiles. They are also zones refuges for species like the Warbler grisette and polyglot Hypolaïs.
		The lawns dry on slopes limestones It is nearly a score of sites distributed on 15 communes which answer this definition. These lawns are generally characterized by a very strong slope which prevented the agriculture of plain from developing. Traditionally grazed by herds of sheep, the calcicoles sites of lawns acceuillent a rich and diversified flora. On the whole, it is more than 300 vegetable species which thrive there 3 are single for the Area. Their privileged establishment generally locates them in sets of valleys of very great landscape value. Side fauna, apart from the viper péléiade which reaches here its limit of distribution in the North of France, 4 sites at least, by the presence of old underground chalk careers, are used as sites of hibernation for the bat (15 species out of the 17 present ones in area attend the Park, of which four are regarded as threatened at the European level). Atlantic moors The whole of the plate is classified since the middle of the year 1995 in Prefectoral Decree of Protection of Biotopes (450 ha) and 4 Voluntary Natural Reserves (250 ha) should be born soon. The site is victim of embroussaillement significant following the abandonment of traditional practices agropastorales, but there remains described as exceptional for the quality of its habitats at the national and international level with 111 remarkable species from including 28 protected. The scarcity of the landscapes of moors in the plains of the North-West of France makes them all the more gravitational and mysterious that they became to us foreign. The plate of Helfaut with Blendecques is one of the natural monuments of Audomarois. Wet valleys of Hem and Aa The two portions of these valleys are primarily made up of meadow but river (Aa and Hem) also, drink wet, ponds and willows tadpoles. They are sites with strong landscape value of which the quality of the aquatic environments present of water oxygenated particularly well. The watery herbaria are of beautiful quality and are used like spawning grounds for Salmonidés (Trout fario, Chabot, Vairon...). The Martin-fisherman and the Owl chevêche are the birds characteristic of these valleys.
Le Brouckailler à Nieurlet