We've added some extra pointers for visitors.  Broadwater Warren is a large, sprawling reserve with a river valley that snakes around several bends.  Sometimes it's difficult to know where you are, or even which direction you're heading.  Various visitors to Broadwater Warren have reported problems finding their way back to their car.  Our visitor survey last summer also revealed that many people wanted more signs…

An important day in the short history of the reserve. Woodlark were seen and heard on the reserve today for the first time since the RSPB acquired the land in 2007 and began the habitat restoration work. One the key aims of the work was the return of Woodlark which were last recorded 5 years ago. So we are celebrating today having seen a group of 4 birds feeding in one of the areas cleared for heathland regeneration and hearing…

Our Work Party volunteers have just attended a tree planting day at Broadwater and got stuck in, planting 50 new native trees in an area that was previously only birch.

The volunteers planted Oak, Rowan, Hazel, Sallow, Hawthorn, Spindle, and Blackthorn.  This will help to produce a rich and diverse woodland area that will be great for our resident dormice and a wide range of other species.  The cost of the saplings was covered…

Several towers of wood have appeared in the areas recently cleared for heathland restoration.  Built from the off-cuts from the recent felling work, these superb sculptures are an interesting and suprising feature of interest for visitors.

The tower above has sprung up next to our Woodlark sign.

If you have ideas for environmentally friendly artwork that would complement the reserve and the wonderful wealden landscape…

Great views this morning of a flock of 14 Crossbills in a small oak tree on the old firing range. The birds were easily visible from the main track down to the Central Crossroads and I watched them for some time as they occasionally flew down to drink and bathe in puddles near the base of the tree. Elswehere on the reserve Siskins and Lesser Redpolls were feeding in the tops of Birch and Alder.

The area where we've undertaken conifer clearance work this Autumn is now re-opened to visitors.  The change is quite startling.  Four areas which were previously dense and impenetrable conifer, 10ft high, are now wide open.

These areas are going to look sparse for a year or so, but then the heather, which has laid dormant below, will start to grow.  in a few years time these areas will be a superb, flourishing heathland…

A big thank you to all the AXA PPP staff from Tunbridge Wells who gave a day of their time for a team challenge at the reserve. They spent the day clearing scrub along a ride to improve the habitat for invertebrates (particularly butterflies) and in preparation for the installation of one of the stock fences for the grazing animals that are due to arrive next year. Everyone worked extremely hard and the atmosphere was great…

Children were invited out onto the reserve at Half Term to see clearance work in progress and to see how the heather is returning.

The children got stuck-in with some recording and measuring for us.  They used 0.5m square quadrats and measured how much heather is regrowing in the areas that were cleared of conifer in 2010.  The survey plots had to be placed at random, and the children had great fun throwing the quadrats…

The Douglas Fir is one of the tallest conifers.  They will typically grow to over 50m tall but can grow to over 100m.

This lovely tree is growing in the heart of our woodland at Broadwater Warren.  150 acres of woodland at Broadwater will be retained and enhanced over the coming years.  Where this Douglas Fir is growing we will coppice the birch to promote woodand flowers and encourage scrubby regrowth.  We'll also…

There was a little bit of drama at Broadwater Warren today.  Our RSPB volunteers' bonfire flared up late in the day and spread quickly across an area of dry grasses.  The Fire Services (East Sussex and Kent) were on the scene very quickly to help.  The fire was quickly put out but a deep litter layer and deep soil can burn for days so it was important to douse the entire area with water and look out for any more flare…

While fellow volunteer Emma and I were walking around the reserve on Saturday we came across a beautiful fungus (see photo). Martin, our Area Manager and leading fungi expert, has just told me that it is a Violet Webcap (Cortinarius violaceus) that is Red Listed as Near Threatened with just 142 records from the British Isles on the main UK fungi database. It grows in deciduous and mixed woods on acid soils. Very exciting…

Our brilliant Broadwater volunteers have been busy all summer removing rabbit netting from the undergrowth around reserve.  The wire netting was put in by foresters to protect the hundreds of acres of pine they were planting.  But the price and value of pine dropped and the foresters lost interest in maintaining their plantations.  They left behind a tangle of wire netting which stretches for hundreds of meters in all…

I was amazed to discover young heather shoots flowering less than one year after the ground was cleared of pines.

The large area on the east of the reserve was a dense and inpenetrable sea of young pines, 8 feet tall and supressing all else that might try to grow.   After they were cleared the area looked stark and devoid of life.  But, under the litter of pine needles and brash, heather seeds were waiting to germinate. 

Reserve visitor Tom Lee has been taking some superb photographs of the wildlife and we're very grateful that he has shared them with us.  Here are a few of Tom's photos...

Large Skipper - a lovely little, fast-flying skipper identifable by the light squares on the wings.  There's more information about this butterfly here. 

Large Red Damselfly - this is one of the first damselflies to emerge in the Spring…

In 2010 an area of the inpenetrable young conifer was destroyed by fire.  The fire service were on site for three days putting out the fire and damping down the embers.  This area is now a carpet of young birch saplings, 6 to 10 inches tall.

In the gaps that remain there are heather shoots everywhere.  Both birch and heather have responded to the potassium-rich ash in the soil which provides nutrients, and they are now…

We monitored all 200 of our dormouse nestboxes yesterday and were delighted to find 3 occupied by dormouse families. We assessed that the young varied from about 3 weeks' to no more than a few days' old. All looked in good health. In all we found dormice in 10 boxes and this time no hornets! Birding highlights of the day were a small group of Crossbills, a Grey Wagtail near the Decoy Pond and, best of all, a Kingfisher…

David Mullenger and I walked up to the car park and found this fearsome spider proudly guarding a superb web.  Can anyone ID the the spider for our records?

The scrubby bushes around the car park have been teeming with life this summer.  It's always fun turning over leaves; you never know what you might find.

The car park at Broadwater Warren is fringed by shrubs and flowers.  These provide valuable niches for wildlife.  Check out the nettles for the larvae of Small Tortoiseshell butterfly.

Butterflies which might be seen flying arounf the car park at the moment include Meadow Brown, Ringlet, Large Skipper and White Admiral.

Today my wife Linda and I assisted our reserve volunteer Dormouse Monitor, Adrian Podmore, to check the 200 Dormouse Nestboxes that we have put out throughout the reserve. We were delighted to find Dormice in 7 of the boxes and Dormouse nests in a few others. It was particularly nice that there were 3 pairs and all the individuals looked to be in good condition. So we hope to find firm evidence of breeding when we check…

I checked the reserve on Monday evening (16 May) and was lucky enough to hear 3 churring males and a flight call from a fourth bird. They were all on the edges of the areas cleared of young pine last autumn in phase one of the heathland restoration programme.  We will be closely monitoring how the Nightjars react to the clearance work. It will of course be a while before the heathland regenerates and the birds begin to benefit…

She's very modest about it, but I just had to put it on the blog. Janina Burley apologised for turning up late at last Sunday's conservation work party because she had been competing in a triathlon earlier in the day!! Having got up at 5am, swum 500 metres, cycled 26 kms and run 5 kms, Janina arrived a few minutes late for the work party and then put ina full day on pond maintenance and rabbit fence clearance. The rest…

Not to be outdone by the Tuesday team, the weekend volunteers started tackling the rabbit fence on Saturday. In a few hours they had pulled up well over a hundred metres of the stuff (only several kilometres more to go!). Thanks to Emma, Catrin, Toby, Alan and Janina for their efforts and here they are looking fairly pleased with themselves.

Now that the nesting season is underway the volunteers are turning their attention to tasks other than scrub and rhododendron clearance. There are miles of old rabbit-proof fencing, put up around the young pine plantations, that need to be removed before the next stage of the heathland restoration programme begins in the autumn. We have done similar work in previous springs and summers and when I mention the task I always…

On Friday 25 March our archaeology consultant Chris Butler led a walk around the new History Trail. We were delighted that everyone who booked turned up and the group of 22 had the benefit of Chris's expert knowledge on a two-hour tour of the trail. Chris explained that the current interpretations of some of the features may change as they are studied in more detail and as the young pine clearance reveals more of the…