This habitat type is particularly important as a nesting and resting ground for birds and as a rookery for seals. The vegetation cover is usually very sparse on the small islands; occasionally, some superficial deposit rocks are exposed. Dry-loving plants and lichens form patches of primary vegetation, many islands have no trees at all. The vegetation of the small islands and islets is affected by...

This habitat includes muddy sandy and sand-clay beaches (marshes) flooded with wind set-up, where salt-loving (halophilic) annuals grow in larger or smaller patches on wet saline soil. Marshes are formed mainly on the flat coasts of bays, protected from strong winds and waves, and in some places on coastal meadows. Beyond the shoreline, the marshes often smoothly transition into coastal meadows...

Only the cliffs with eroded ridges that are under the direct influence of sea waves belong to this habitat type (those cliff shores that are not subject to the erosion of the waves belong to habitat type 8210). The height of the eroded ridges on the Estonian cliffed coasts is from a few metres to several dozen metres. The upper part of a cliff ridge is often made up of various post-ice age...

This habitat type includes shore ridges of coarse gravel and pebbles and rocky moraine shores, which are not normally reached by storm waves and where permanent vegetation is developing or has already developed. The stony banks form a natural extension of the drift lines (1210) in both time and space. In Estonia, pebble beaches can be seen primarily near the klint and on the cliffed and carbonate...

Stacked sand, gravel, or rock embankments on or near the water’s edge. They are often buried under seaweed and other sea material, and the next storm can wipe out such an embankment. Therefore, only a few, mostly annual plants can grow on the drift lines. Closer to the inland, where storm waves usually do not reach, there are permanent plants on both the sand and carbonate rock shingles, and there...

Reefs are considered to be underwater rocks and moraine or biological formations that rise considerably above the seabed that are sometimes exposed during low tide. The biota of the reefs is very diverse, the vegetation is mainly formed by brown and red algae communities. Bladder wrack communities are particularly rich in species. There are no rocky reefs in Estonia, but here, this habitat type...

This habitat type includes shallow bays and coves that are fairly well protected from waves. They are distinguished from the estuaries (1130) by a much smaller inflow of fresh water. The bottom of the bays is usually soft, covered with sand or clay, and mostly with rich vegetation. Due to the diverse benthic life, many different species of birds find food in such bays. Wide shallow bays can be...

Shallow coastal lakes still temporarily connected to the sea that have been formed as a result of the separation of shallow inlets and bays (1160) from the sea. The salinity of the lagoons depends on the exchange of water with the sea on the one hand and the amount of precipitation and the inflow of fresh water on the other. Compared to the estuaries of rivers (1130), less fresh water ends up here...

This habitat type includes the large sandy and muddy shores exposed during the low tide on the ocean coast. In the Baltic Sea, where there are almost no tides, wind set-up and wind set-down are caused by strong winds. Wind set-down, like the low tide, leaves large flat coastal areas dry, allowing many water birds to feed there. The vegetation of mud, clay, and sand shallows, which remain dry when...

These are coastal coves where river and sea water mix. The environment here is also shaped by the river sediments deposited in the slow-flowing conditions. On the Estonian coast, only the Matsalu Bay can be considered an estuary, where the salinity increases more or less evenly – from the freshwater estuary of the Kasari River to six per mille in the Väinameri Sea. The Matsalu Bay is extremely...