Wildlife

Winter can be a quiet time for many, but for us it can be one of the busiest! With our winter wildfowl and migrating birds visiting us during the colder months, there is plenty of wildlife to look out for. We see the arrival of many overwintering ducks such as shoveler, wigeon, gadwall, pochard and many more, as well as winter visitors such as redwings and fieldfares, who you will see flitting through our hedgerows looking for delicious berries to eat. We have also seen some great flocks of golden plover this winter, which is a really wonderful sign that the island clearance that took place back in 2021 is working! Contractors undertook the task of clearing Hawthorn island to create a bare and open habitat, which is perfect for a range of birds such as our golden plover, and we are already seeing increasing numbers, and more regularly too. More information on the works that were carried out can be found here. 

Back in November visitors had some brilliant views of an otter- and we are pleased to hear it was spotted again towards the beginning of January. Otters are a rare but regular visitor to Summer Leys, and usually you’d be pretty lucky to spot one! It is more common to see the signs of otter on the reserve, such as their droppings or ‘spraint’, which they leave in prominent places such as fallen trees, weirs and bridges. They contain visible fish bones and have a distinctive, pleasant smell, just like jasmine tea! The elusive otter is one of our top predators, feeding mainly on fish, waterbirds, amphibians and crustaceans. They have their cubs in underground burrows, known as 'holts' (we are keeping our fingers crossed for pup sightings!).

We also kicked off the New Year with another rare sighting- a yellow-browed warbler. Birders flocked to the reserve to see if they could catch a glimpse of this gorgeous little warbler, which hung around for a good week or so before moving on. These small green warblers are similar in size to a gold crest, with a very distinctive yellow ‘eyebrow’, with a distinctive call that is similar to a coal tit. Yellow-browed warblers breed in Siberia and may appear in the UK as they migrate south-westwards where they will spend the winter in southern Asia- although you don’t see them very often! Having said that, in the last 30 years there has been an increase in the frequency of yellow-browed warblers in Europe. Recent research from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden has looked into whether this is due to the ongoing result of vagrancy in a successful species, or whether a proportion have been successfully and repeatedly migrating through Europe as a new migration route evolves. More information on the research can be found on Bird Guides here.

If you’d like to learn more about the wildlife that lives at Summer Leys, why not come along to one of our Wildlife Wanders? These are guided walks lead by our knowledgeable volunteers, and are great way to learn about all our wildlife and also meet like-minded people! Our next one is on the 16^th March- more information can be found here.

Conservation:

We also carry out lots of our habitat works over winter, and you may have seen our busy reserves team and volunteers working hard around the reserve carrying out various tasks. Recently they have been in our coppice section as highlighted on the map below. 1/10^th of this section is cut every winter, with the aim to achieve a range of age structures within the scrub. These varying levels of growth and age provide a great range of habitats to encourage different species, particularly small nesting birds such as warblers.

You may have also seen some tree and scrub clearance taking place not too long ago near to the Paul Britten hide (also known as the double decker hide), which is adjacent to the scrape. The scrape is our most important area for ground nesting wetland birds such as lapwing and redshank. These birds are very vulnerable to predation of eggs and chicks, particularly from avian predators such as crows and buzzards. Currently, the scrape is surrounded on three sides by tall trees. These trees provide perches for these predatory birds to survey the scrape safely and pick off vulnerable chicks or eggs. We have removed a section of trees, with the aim of creating a thick, short hedgerow- which also provides a great habitat for some of our smaller birds.

In the last few weeks we have also had contractors in to resurface the path leading from the car park to the Paul Britten hide, which will help improve accessibility, especially during the winter months when the path would become very muddy especially over winter. This means it had developed many potholes which pool water. The surface layer of mud was scraped back and raked, followed by a new layer of stone placed on top and rolled until flat.

Visitor Centre:

Just before Christmas we unfortunately had to close the centre due to the cold weather, and due to a few other issues we have decided to remain closed until February Half Term, to give us a chance to get it up and running properly. We hope to be open from the 11th February. We are waiting on our heating to be sorted so until then we may be looking at future closures depending on the weather (roll on Spring!). We will be updating our website page with any closures as we go along- so we recommend checking here if you are thinking of visiting us. We are now also closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

We are really looking forward to the year ahead at our centre. In April it will have been a full year since we first opened our doors, and we have loved being on site and meeting all or regular visitors, and new faces too! We are already planning our events and activities for 2023, with activities such as Willow Weaving, ‘Try Before you Buy’ Optics events and much more to be announced including plenty of activities for children and families. We have also have some events coming up in February Half Term including a few different drop in crafts, Wildlife Watch nest box building and our Youth Rangers Launch! Youth Rangers is a group for 11-17 year olds who are keen to make a difference in their local environment. We meet regularly throughout the year and are looking for more young people to join our group. Why not join us in February to get stuck in with some coppicing on the reserve, all for free to get a taster of what we get up to? More information can be found here.

As always please do consider popping in to the centre on your visit when we're open, whether it’s for a nice warm drink or to chat to our friendly staff and volunteers. We love hearing about the wildlife you have spotted, and are always on hand to chat to you about our work and any questions you may have.

For more updates and wildlife sightings please follow us on Facebook and Instagram!