Övragård, Naturreservat

There is much to discover in the Övragård nature reserve! Here you will find one of the country's few habitats for the critically endangered species needle thorn and exciting traces from the Ice Age. The reserve has no marked paths, but it is easy to get around in the open landscape.

On either side of Brostorpsån are small hilly pastures. The watercourse curves and meanders through the landscape, like a snake in motion. There is a bridge over Brostorpsån in the western part of the reserve.

Needle-finch and hair-finch

The open heaths are the most valuable environments in the reserve. Here grows needle broom, which only occurs in about ten places in the whole country. All are in Veinge parish and Övragård has one of the largest populations. The small, low-growing, branchy shrub is easy to recognize with its yellow flowers and sharp thorns. On a hill in the eastern part of the reserve, it flowers most abundantly at the end of May. Amongst the heather, there is also hairstreak, which starts flowering at the beginning of June. It lacks thorns and is more low-growing than its rarer relative. Here you will also find meadow and pasture plants such as hayloft, haymeadow grass, meadowsweet and wild thyme.

Watch birds

The reserve is home to a rich bird life. The rare species of skylark, marsh harrier and double thrush nest here. Salmon, trout and sea trout spawn on the sandy bottoms of Brostorpsån.

Mills and crofts

In the 1800s, there were several mills and crofts along Brostorpsån. During this time, the reserve contained both inland fields and meadows and outlying grazed pastures. Stone fences, fossil fields and cairns still exist today and bear witness to how the land was used in ancient times.

Traces of the ice

The reserve is 50-60 meters above sea level. This level corresponds to the sea level at the time of the melting of the last ice sheet. Winding networks of hills and ridges were formed by well-sorted sand, gravel and stone adjacent to the ice. There are also a few dead ice pits. These are geological formations that formed when the ice sheet retreated. Large icebergs sometimes broke away from the glacier, the so-called mobile ice. The immobile iceberg is called dead ice and around the large block of dead ice, sand and sediment from the ice rivers sometimes collected. The sediment solidified around the dead ice block and when the ice eventually melted, large pits were left in the ground.

In the reserve there are also traces of the mining activities that took place in the area in the 1950s and 1970s.