If you’ve been to the reserve recently, you may have noticed a bit of building work ongoing. This is to convert one of the buildings into our new office, and create some residential volunteering accommodation in the house by the car park. Behind this house there is a fantastic garden.
It is a large garden with 2 large ponds (previously used as part of the former fishery). Once the building renovation has finished, we plan to open up most of the garden as part of the visitor experience. Though there is some structural work to complete before we can go ahead, we have started by transforming what was previously lawn, into more of a wildflower meadow:
We have left much of the grass to grow long, and we will only take a crop from this once a year (like you would a hay crop). In time, the dominant grasses will be outcompeted by more flowers.
In some areas we have stripped a layer of lawn off completely and sown with a nectar-rich seed mix. This looks absolutely brilliant at the moment and the insects really love it!
We have kept a bit of “mown lawn” so we can use the space for events, but after a while we noticed that there was a fantastic clump of birds-foot trefoil right in the middle. So, of course, we have mown around this for the time being. Once again, the insects really love it!
Maybe you could have a go at leaving some areas wild in your garden, or mowing around flowers on your lawn, or even planting nectar rich strips. Here’s a link to the seed mix we use http://shopping.rspb.org.uk/flowers-for-pollinators-beneficial-insects-seeds.html
And there are more tips on how to garden for wildlife on our website https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/gardening-for-wildlife
Recent sightings
We have started to lower water levels across the reserve now, to expose more mud for feeding passage waders. We have already had a few through with up to 5 ruff, 3 spotted redshank, green and common sandpipers. The fledgling egrets are really building in number on the Marsh Covert flood, but the cattle egret chick is still waiting to fledge. It is due any day now, so come down and see if you can watch it fledge!
While leaving the office the other night, John and Colin noticed a young badger out feeding in the field behind the car park... at 530 in the afternoon! It stayed there ages! Long enough to get some cracking photographs...
Colin Wells.
We had a new brood of avocet hatch yesterday, which is the latest record of hatching we have ever had on the reserve (and we still have 2 nests yet to hatch!), and the 2 Mediterranean gull chicks are still doing well. A couple of newly hatched great crested grebe chicks have been showing beautifully from Bridgepool Screen
Colin Wells
And we are still getting newly hatched broods of wildfowl appearing with plenty of tufted duck broods and a fresh group of shoveller ducklings on Centenary Pool this morning.
The flowers along the paths are looking at their best at the moment on a sunny day, so come along and see the wonderful array of insects feeding on them – we seem to be having a really good year for gatekeeper and comma butterflies.