Winter wildlife

The autumn wildlife has now started to appear on the reserve with the change of weather of late. Redwings are quite a common sight flying over the visitor centre and we had a brief sighting of a ring ouzel also by the visitor centre at one point. Fieldfares have been seen around the reserve and despite the various reports of a waxwing winter, none have been spotted on the reserve, YET. A yellowhammer has been seen on the field feeders recently and although these are not rare, Lackford is not the right type of habitat for them as they are usually a farmland bird, something which Lackford is not. However, this sighting goes onto our species list, which is now at 136 species for the year, equalling last years species list and there is still time left to go over that. We can only do that with your help of course. The majority of our sightings come from our visitors reporting back at the visitor centre telling us what they have seen, without them, our species list would be a lot less. So if you have a sighting, no matter how common you may think it is, please let us know.

We have a sightings book in the centre, just let us know what you've seen, or fill it in yourself, it's that simple.

A word from our Education officer

We have a new slot in this blog where another member of the Lackford team writes to tell us what's happening in their sector. This time it's our Education Officer Emma Keeble, over to you Emma...

Lackford had a really busy autumn half term last week with 4 events over the week. these ranged from a children’s activity on the Tuesday where the focus was on autumn and seasonal change. We read autumn stories, hunting for autumn leaves and made autumn pictures. The Wednesday saw the transformation of double decker into the spooky hide complete with cobwebs, pumpkins, spooky sounds and hanging bats for our family night walk. 73 people joined this event, calling up tawny owls, bat detecting, bug hunting by torch light and making bottle lanterns.

The spiders have been busy in the Double-decker hide

Some participants of the family night walk with their halloween creations

Our young wardens team worked like troopers on the Thursday clearing Alder scrub along Long Reach. The team of 20 strong 10-16 year olds coppiced a long stretch along the lake margin. The aim of young wardens is to get young people out and about with like minded individuals and give them a chance to gain practical conservation skills, many of them are interested in careers in conservation and this gives them a valuable insight into the work of people in this field.

The young wardens after a hard days coppicing

We finished the week with a woodland adventure family morning in Sheepwash, den building, fire lighting, making woodland arts and crafts. Another well attended event with over 50 participants all enjoying a beautiful autumnal morning in the woods exploring as a family. It was great to see children working alongside parents and grandparents to complete the challenges we set them. At the end of a busy week its fair to say the education team were fairly shattered but on a high following some lovely feedback, including this message from one happy parent:

Hi I would like to thank the Lackford Lakes team for a fantastic day for Young Wardens event today ( Emma Keeble and her team). My son come home very excited and insist that I book him on the next event in Feb immediately. He really enjoyed using the tools and equipment and felt that he was part of team carrying out proper work despite not knowing anyone. Thanks again for all the hard workMany thanks

A successfully built den.

Stickmen and snacks

Leaf collage at Naturally Art

The kids had a wonderful time creating at Naturally Art

Firewood

As the weather takes a turn for cooler temperatures, wood stoves across the county are being fired up and if you think it's time to get yours going, we are selling bags of locally coppiced firewood here at Lackford for £6 per bag. Come into the visitor centre to buy your bags, if you want a large amount, give our centre a ring first to make sure we have enough in stock 01284 728706.

Christmas opening.

Well Christmas is not far away and this year, the centre will be closing early. Here's our opening times over the Christmas period:

Sunday December 11th centre closes at 4pm

Re-opens at 10am on Tuesday 27th December

The centre will then be open from 10 am - 4pm until Sunday 8th January.

On the subject of Christmas, if you've been wondering about what sort of gift to buy your naturalist loved one this year, why not pop down to Lackford this Saturday 19th November to visit our optics demonstration by Viking Optics. They will have a huge range of optics on display ready for you to try out and get the feel of so you can make the right choice.

Book sale

The recent book sale held at Lackford raised in excess of £700 for the trust. We would like to thank everyone who donated books, sorted and stored books and bought and sold books. Thank you very much indeed.

Sightings

The kingfisher seems to be showing at Bernard's, the Double-decker and at the visitor centre pool too. Another new and becoming quite a regular sight at the centre, is a grey wagtail. This has been seen nearly everyday at the edge of the pool, so well worth popping in to check it out. Goldeneye's are now arriving on the lakes and can be seen from Bess' hide and on the Sailing lake, which now has the Winter hide open for business. We have had 4 goosander's seen on the Slough, 3 males & 1 female and can usually be seen in the afternoon. The Slough has also seen quite a few teal of late with numbers going over 200 at one point. Similar numbers of wigeon have also been seen at Bess' hide. We also had a visit from 4 white-fronted geese (2 ad, 2 juv) and 1 or possibly 2 pink-footed geese also seen from Bess' hide.

Another long awaited sighting that many of you love is our starlings. Back in 2014, we had around 17,000 murmuring outside the visitor centre, yet last year, there were none. Well, we are happy to say that this week, around 2,000 have been coming in to roost in the reed bed outside the centre. Some days they do a little murmuration and on some days they just fly straight down to roost. We can only hope that with time, the numbers will increase and the murmurations will begin. Watch this space!