Many wildlife watchers have what you might call a ‘bucket list’ of species they would like to see or photograph. Whilst there is nothing wrong in aspiring to see wild otters or to enjoy a whale and dolphin watching trip off the UK coast, there are many wonderful wildlife spectacles to be enjoyed on our own doorstep.
In recent years starling murmurations have grown in popularity and people often enquire as to when starlings are likely to gather at our better known reserves but surprisingly few ask about the spectacle of corvid roosts. In winter, corvids, such as jackdaws, rooks and crows gather in spectacular numbers at roost sites across the county. These large groups, mostly made up of juvenile and other non-breeding birds, provide safety in numbers and a chance for birds to exchange information such as feeding locations.
Many of the people who’ve travelled from far and wide in the hope of seeing starlings ‘perform’ at our Attenborough Nature Reserve, south of Nottingham, will have experienced the raucous gathering of thousands of jackdaws, rooks and crows as dusk falls. Other Trust sites where you can experience this winter wonder include Besthorpe, north of Newark, and Idle Valley. The experience of watching and listening to the birds come into roost on Mons Pool from the open fields surrounding Besthorpe Nature Reserve is wonderful, it almost feels that the birds are descending all around you.
However, many of our woodland sites also have roosts, especially woodlands near open farmland and grassland with good invertebrate populations. Numbers tend to peak around Christmas, but can remain high until birds return to their breeding areas around February – so this is one wildlife spectacle to have on your list for early 2022.
Sunny days as early as January bring the prospect of a fleeting glimpse of brimstone butterflies in areas of scrub and woodland habitat. As winter draws to a close we can look forward to the early signs of spring such as the tiny pink flowers on coppiced hazel, at reserves such as Treswell Wood near Retford and Dyscarr Wood north of Worksop. These reserves also offer a good chance of spotting the wonderful carpet of white provided by wood anemones or the dash of yellow from early primroses – so don’t feel you have to wait until the spring arrives to start connecting with nature.
Stay connected
Despite the return of some restrictions, our nature reserves remain open as they have throughout the pandemic and our events programme is back up and running. Our first few tours of the beaver enclosure at Idle Valley were completely sold out – so if you’d like to come and see what all the fuss is about for yourself and to see the positive impact these amazing animals are already having on the reserve get your placed booked soon.
For details of our events visit www.nottinghamshirewildlife.org/events.
Main image: Elliott Kean