Tor View Hide reopen
We are delighted to announce that the rebuilding of the Waltons Screens and the essential maintenance to the Tor View Hide has been completed and they are all now open. You’ll notice we’ve made a few changes to keep everyone safe. So that you can all safely enjoy watching the wonderful wildlife here, please be aware of the limited capacity and wear a face covering if able to. We've put hand sanitiser at the entrance to the Tor View hide, so please use it before going in.
You'll see that we have spaced out the seating to allow for social distancing and so some viewing slots are not in use - we have clearly marked these. You'll spot that we've got maximum numbers signposted at the entrance, so please consider the amount of time you dwell in the hide on busy days, to allow everyone the opportunity to enjoy the wildlife in safety here. We have also put in extra passing places on the way to the hide to allow for social distancing.
A big thank you to all our volunteers who have worked hard over the last few weeks to help us get everything open again!
Car park work
This week the work parties on Wednesday 7 and Thursday 8 October will be based in the car park, doing our annual big cut of the islands, which will involve closing sections of the car park at times so that we can all work safely. This will be done with hazard tape and cones so if you are visiting on the day please take notice of this when entering and moving around the car park.
We carry out this work because wildflower seeds have been sown on the islands in an effort to create a meadow habitat that will enhance the site with a diversity of plants. This will in turn provide home for a wide range of invertebrates.
To achieve this there has to be regular mowing to control over-vigorous plants and reduce nutrients to suit the wildflowers. Some areas will be left uncut to provide winter habitat for all those invertebrates.
Sightings blogs:
These will return soon. Since returning to work priorities have been to get the visitor infrastructure and its access back open safely for visitors as well as other catch up work. We've made really good progress here and attention will now be turning to catching up with habitat management work such as the car park islands and the annual reed cutting. But don't worry I haven't abandoned the sightings blog and it will return very soon. Thank you to all those who have said how much they have missed the regular updates from our wonderful reserve.