Visitors to Radipole last week may have noticed a commotion coming from the ditches and the sound of machinery chugging through the reeds; some might also remember hearing the same thing last autumn. In a couple of places it looks as if a small tank has barged through the reeds, crossed the path and carried on into the thicket and the waters beyond.

Fear not, we haven’t been visited overnight by a drunk maniac in a…

At the start of yesterdays ‘Discover Radipole Lake’ walk, I perhaps rather foolishly asked everyone if there was something in particular anyone really wanted to see. Names such as Bearded Tit, Bittern, Kingfisher were all mentioned and I thought to myself, "Oh no... have I accidentally raised everyone’s expectations?" It was going to be tough to achieve even half the things mentioned. So what happened? Well, after a two…

Strolling along, minding my own business... I spotted something familiar among the Fleabane and grasses beside the Radipole hide trail last week. It was (and still is) a Wasp Spider (Argiope bruennichi), an unmistakeable species with an abdomen banded with vivid black and yellow stripes, which inspired its common name. There have been anecdotal sightings of the species at Radipole in the past but this is the first one…

Lodmoor has become the place in recent years to go and enjoy the mass of Common Terns that arrive there every spring to rear their young. Last week we were very shocked to find out that the whole breeding colony had disappeared from the reserve leaving some very bare islands, sadly with lots of abandoned eggs. There must have been a very good reason for this happening as they spend a lot of energy travelling all the…

Following on from my last slightly cautious blog about the arrival of spring I can now safely say that things have definitely picked up at Radipole and Lodmoor. My walk to work yesterday morning was greeted with the sound of recently arrived Reed Warblers which were obviously keen to advertise their presence after their rather long northward journey from Africa. Likewise Sedge Warbler were doing the same under probably…

Is this weekend the end of the cold weather? I’d rather not risk saying it is but at least the Weymouth reserves feel a little more spring like. There’s been some real spring highlights over the last few weeks, perhaps best of all being up to six Garganey which have been seen well from the North hide at Radipole most days. This was taken when a few were hanging around the buddleia loop a few weeks ago.

After more heavy rain overnight the water levels at Radipole have been rising once again.  It started to rain heavily again as I went for a walk on the reserve. 

Crossing the bridge I looked back at the Discovery Centre which is still safe above the water.

The island outside the window of the Discovery Centre was nearly submerged.  The water level measure indicates how high the water level was this morning…

In other words the Weymouth Wetlands Discovery Centre's second refurbishment has now been completed!

 I visited the Centre this morning and took some photos of the newly refurbished interior.

It's hard to believe that nearly eight months have gone by since the 'Great Flood' in July 2012. 

Ben and Michelle were there this morning welcoming visitors to the Centre. The cafe is once …

Now that January is behind us and hopefully the icy blast that it brought us, I had a wander around Radipole's footpaths to look for signs of spring on this first day of February. 

The Winter Heliotrope is now in full flower having recovered from the icy blast last month.  This plant is a member of the Aster (formerly the Daisy) family.  The Latin name is Petasites fragrans, Petasites is from the…

It’s that time of year again when we ask as many people as possible to top up their bird feeders and tell us what comes to visit. The Big Garden Birdwatch has been getting bigger and bigger ever since it started in 2001 when 52,000 people took part. Last year a staggering 609,000 people counted the birds in their garden for us generating millions of records. This we want to keep the trend going and get even more people…

This is my fourth winter at the Weymouth Wetlands and I’ve come to realise that snow in Weymouth isn’t as common as it is back in my homeland of South Wales. However, when it does snow in Weymouth the place comes alive with birds. You would have almost certainly noticed that we had snow last night so birding expectations were high this morning. Got to the Discovery Centre just before 9am when it was still sleeting hard…

I had a slightly bizarre encounter with one of our wintering Bitterns yesterday afternoon. One of the great things about working at  Radipole is having to walk through the reserve every time I need to get to the office. This enables me to sneak in a bit of extra birdwatching and in the past its lead to encounters with Great White Egrets, Glossy Ibis and Yellow-browed Warblers. A very strange sound caused me to look round…

Swans have long been associated with Weymouth and Radipole Lake. It all started with a generous gift from Abbotsbury Swannery to the town and people of Weymouth. You can probably guess what that gift was.... yes, a donkey.

Only joking, it was obviously a swan, in fact a pair. This all happened in about 1839 long before the building of Westham bridge which meant that Radipole Lake didn’t exist at the time, it would have…

Here at Weymouth Wetlands we have probably given the impression once or twice that we hold moths in high esteem for their delicate beauty, benign demeanour, cute little faces and intriguing names. The recent wet weather hasn’t been terribly conducive to moth-trapping and the quite sensibly named November Moths and Winter Moths making infrequent appearances at the window are the only species to set our moth sensibilities…

Anyone visiting the reserve today would have been met with an ever familiar sight, flooding! Yes folks, its raining again and the River Wey is getting rather full so as a precaution we have moved a lot of the fixtures and fittings out of the discovery centre. This means it’s currently closed and due to more heavy rain in the forecast we have taken the decision to keep it closed until after Christmas.

Weymouth and…

If there’s one species of bird which Radipole is famous for it must be the Bearded Tit. Not a day goes by that a visitor doesn’t come into the Discovery Centre and ask us about them.

Back last winter you may remember us mentioning some reed cutting in preparation for thatching the roof of the Discovery Centre. New reed growth often results in a healthy crop of seed heads, which are a favourite food of our…

As the sun was shining and the skies were blue this morning, a welcome change after the grey skies of late, I had a meander around Radipole to see if there were any flowers still out.  The first late flowers I came aross were several Hogweed plants,  Their usual flowering time is high summer in July and August and they are normally 5-6 feet high.  These Hogweeds are quite short, are flowering and seeding themselves in a hurry…

During the half term at the start of this month, visitors to Radipole got stuck into the construction of this rather odd looking thing.

It’s a bug hotel or as Michelle (centre manager) calls it, Buggingham Palace... and it was finished off yesterday with a very fitting thatched roof.

It is made of pallets stuffed with stones, sticks, reed stems, wood chips and other fragments. These provide thousands of nooks…

Recent visitors to either Lodmoor or Radipole may have been wowed with some wonderful wildlife in the past few weeks. There was a spectacular purple heron at Radipole a few weeks ago, looking a bit wacky and alternative. These relatives of the grey heron are ever so slowly moving up into the UK and have even started breeding on some RSPB reserves in the East.

As Luke mentioned in the last blog there is a pretty impressive…

As the nights draw in and become colder, going out in the evenings might not be top of your agenda but if I was to tell you that an evening visit to Lodmoor could produce one of nature's most spectacular shows... a Starling murmuration... you might think twice!

It's been several decades since that last really impressive Starling murmuration in Weymouth with Radipole hosting a regular roost back in the early…

The evening of Tuesday 30th October saw colleagues and friends of Nick Quintrell gather in the Visitor Centre to remember and celebrate his life.   Nick's sister Tammy and her children, along with Mazie, visited the reserve earlier in the day.  The children participated in the half term events laid on at the Visitor Centre and had made bug hotels and enjoyed  some painting.  Mazie also enjoyed herself catching with old friends…

It's now been six weeks since the tragic loss of our colleague and friend Nick Quintrell.  We are still coming to terms with his sudden loss and his absence is still very much felt down here on the Weymouth Wetlands.  The Weymouth blogging team have also lost our finest blogger.  Nick's brilliant blogs were legendary and much talked about.

The Weymouth Wetlands Blog has very much lain dormant…

Radipole is alive with wildlife at them moment. After spending 2 days down in the centre on the weekend I couldn't stop myself 'disappearing' out onto the reserve a few times a day to see what was around.

The first thing that will strike you when you arrive is that the water infront of the discovery centre is very low, this is great for attracting in wading birds like snipe and black tailed godwit. In fact…

It’s with great sadness that I have to report the sudden death of our colleague and friend Nick Quintrell. Many of you will have bumped into Nick whilst out on our Weymouth reserves or at least you would have admired some of his work at Radipole and Lodmoor in which he took a lot of pride.  I am sure anyone who knew Nick would agree that his knowledge and hard work has contributed massively towards creating two amazing…

As promised, part 2 of the summer ‘brollies’ now flowering around our reserves. Just to recap, the Carrot Family or the Umbelliferae family (now known as Apiaceae) are plants easily identified by the umbrella shaped arrangement of their flowers.  However, umbelliferae flowers can look confusingly alike at first.  The photos below will assist you in sorting your parsleys from your hemlocks as you wander around…