Hi there, it's Bailey again!
It's been an exciting month or so at The Lodge. We have been working hard to make the site the best it can be and have managed to get some funding from an organisation called GrantScape, through a grant from the Landfill Communities Fund. This has been hugely appreciated by all of us at The Lodge and has enabled us to take on some big projects. We are now happy to say that they are up and running.
Two of the biggest new additions we’ve been able to implement are our two new screen-hides with ponds, both of which can be found near to the car park and shop. There is a new pond and screen hide in the play area that has been tailor-made to allow our younger visitors the opportunity to get a closer look at birds. There are bird feeders hung up just behind the pond which should mean that kids won't have to wait long for an interesting sighting. Our second pond and screen-hide is a little further down the woodpecker trail and has been designed with our avid photographers in mind. This pond may look a little odd, as it is a raised pond, but it will allow photographers to get an eye level shot of birds coming in to drink and eat around the water.
Next up in the play area is a ring of large wooden posts. These are in the same size shape and layout as an iron age roundhouse – a representation of the one found not too far from the wind turbine. Hopefully this will spark the imagination of both our younger and older visitors and should give people a snapshot of what life may have been like over 2,500 years ago.
Now if you’ve already been round our reserves before, you know that it’s quite nice to put your feet up and have a sit down after a long walk. Now there are even more opportunities to do so on both the Woodpecker and Buzzard trails. We have put up a number of hammocks along the Woodpecker trail! This may seem like an odd inclusion, but we thought that it would encourage our visitors to not only relax for a while but to also look up and take in the canopy views more. You never know what might be darting between the branches up there. And that’s not all, there are now four skywatching seats on site, which are all a very comfortable way of admiring the canopy. Two of these are on the Woodpecker trail near one of the screen-hides, and the other two are down the Buzzard trail.
Moving over to the Visitor Information Centre, we have managed to commission a new custom activities trolley! It has a display drawer filled with fossils and archeological finds, all discovered on the reserve. A variety of microscope slides can be viewed using a microscope and should give visitors a glimpse into a much smaller world. Small Discovery Backpacks can be rented from the trolley, containing some activity sheets, some bug hunting pots and brushes to collect bugs (as well as a sheet of instructions on how to do so), a magnifying glass and some binoculars.
Finally, we head back over to the café (still no opening date) and visitors can see the new garden that is going up. It has been designed with both nature and visitors in mind. Our gardener and volunteers have put in a massive amount of effort into the garden, and we are excited to see the garden in full bloom in no time.
We hope that you all enjoy these new additions to The Lodge, and hope that we see you soon.