Lac de Charmes is a 197-hectare lake with a 362-metre-long, 17-metre-high dyke, completed in 1906. It is a tourist site, partly developed for leisure activities. It is renowned for its fishing. You can also swim there and take a trip in a canoe, pedal boat or electric boat.
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Fun tour also available on the Id-Vizit app:
The Pirates of Charmes Lake
Ideal for keeping your children occupied during the walk, the pirates of Charmes lake invite them to discover the lake, its birds, its fish... on the theme of pirate rites and beliefs. In the form of quizzes, puzzles or geolocated stages, your children will be in front of you to answer the questions. Can you keep up with them?
For nature lovers:
The Charmes reservoir was created at the end of the nineteenth century to supply water to the Marne-Saône canal. Its eutrophic waters lie at the bottom of a deep valley on the Langres plateau. This biotope is characterised by a river-like dynamic: the water level varies greatly from season to season, depending on the water requirements of the canal, and is particularly low in late summer and autumn.
Vegetation:
These particular conditions favour a special type of vegetation, stabilised a long time ago with very typical belts of vegetation, determined essentially by the gradient of humidity of the substrate: aquatic vegetation of the Potamion and Lemnion type, amphibious belt (phragmites reedbed), internal belt (Carex vesicaria sedge meadow), meadow vegetation subject to winter flooding and soil compaction (mechanical action of waves in winter and trampling in summer), willow willow grove and orma-woodland. Crypsis faux-vulpin, a southern species at the edge of its range, the neglected bladderwort, a curious floating carnivorous plant, the reclining sisymbrium (or braya), a pioneer species of shoreline, rare in France, protected nationally and in Europe (Bern Convention), listed as a key species in the Habitats Directive, vulnerable in the French Red Book of Threatened Flora and on the Red List of Threatened Plants in Champagne-Ardenne.
Fauna:
The lake attracts numerous species of migratory birds, some of which overwinter here: various ducks and teals (mallard, shoveler, pintail, summer teal, green-winged teal), scaups, in particular the common pochard, the scaup and the tufted duck, the common sandpiper, the black tern, etc. Pairs of great crested grebes are also present. Pairs of great crested grebes, great spotted grebes and common coots breed here. Various birds of prey frequent the lake, including the osprey (on migration), kites and buzzards. Of the sixty-nine species listed, thirty-six are protected by law and four are on the Champagne-Ardenne red list of breeding or wintering birds.
One turtle, the European cistude, was spotted at the tail of the lake; it is protected in France and Europe (Bern Convention) and is on the red list of endangered fauna in France.
The entomofauna, mainly dragonflies, is well represented on the reservoir, with four species that are rare in the region out of the fifteen recorded in the area. Lastly, the reservoir is of obvious interest to fish and game (it is a migratory and breeding ground for several species of waterfowl).
Lac de Charmes
