Kasza Ferenc - Marián Miklós - Ábrahám Levente (szerk.): A Baláta-láp gerinces állatvilága, különös tekintettel a madarakra - Natura Somogyiensis 2. (Kaposvár, 2001)
90 NATURA SOMOGYIENSIS The Baláta native moor and its vertebrate fauna, with special regards to birds The Baláta belongs to those few moors of Hungary, which reserve their native aspects in a relatively unaltered state. It is the duty of science to examine the phenomena of this special fauna and flora and to make its results public. With the present study the authors wish to make a contribution to fulfilling this task. In 1975 M. MARIÁN introduced the outcome of a five year long' study, during which he examined the vertebrate fauna of the moor („The vertebrate fauna of the Baláta"). Now we report on the results of the research carried on from 1977 to 2000, in comparison with the data of the research made 20 years ago. This way we not only get an outline of the present state of the moor and its fauna, but we can also follow the changes incurred. The field work was carried out by F. KASZA, an offspring of the Baláta region. His daily detailed data present an important basis for the zoological examinations and research on nature conservation. The nature conservation area of the Baláta, which amounts to 174 hectares, is situated in Transdanubia, in the western part of Somogy county near the village Kaszó (Fig.: 1.), which is 9 kilometres north-west from Somogyszob. The moor - lying in the depths of the gently undulating, in places still drift - blown sanded woodland - firmly reflects the ancient south-Transdanubian conditions of marsh with grove and swamp. The geographical environment of the moor - the so - called Inner-Somogy is a deflation plain covered by sand hills of ice-age origin. Its height above sea level is 130-160 metres. The sand is poor in lime, it is the so - called acid sand. Between the dunes lakes were developed from the water gathering above the claybanks of subaeric origin. One of them was the Baláta-lake as well, which over thousands of years became marshy and swampy. Today the moor is also on the brink of ruin, since the surrounding forest dashes forward and occupies the water reign. The moor has no outflow, it only subsists on subsoiland rainwater (Fig.: 7.). Water supply - which is of vital importance as for the survival of the flora and fauna - depends on the quantity of the subsoil - and rainwater. The depth of open water is 2 or 3 m under average weather conditions, but it can reach 5-6 m during rainy years. The size of the water surface depends on the weather conditions. In 191112 the whole bed was filled up by water, at the beginning of the 1950's the moor almost dried out and in 1999-2000 the whole bed is again covered by water. In respect of the climatic conditions we only possess the survey data of the
