Our nature reserve

Caerlaverock

Animals kept by people play a major role in making WWT Caerlaverock, on the Solway Firth, a world-class viewing point for thousands of overwintering geese and a year-round haven for a diversity of other wildlife.

Among them are: Earth’s oldest animal, the tadpole shrimp; Britain’s northernmost colony of natterjack toads; otters, badgers, bats; many unusual mini-beasts and an abundance of seabirds.

From May to September, cows from local farms are brought in to the nature reserve to graze, fertilise and churn the ‘merse’ (the Scottish word for a salt marsh) and adjoining grasslands in readiness for the Autumn arrival of many thousands of barnacle geese, pink-footed geese, whooper swans, wigeon, golden plover, curlew, black-tailed godwit and more.

The winter sees the arrive of massive numbers of red knot and dunlin - in excess of 10,000 some years - and hen harriers, short-eared owls, peregrines and merlin can be spotted over the merse throughout the colder months.

Caerlaverock’s wildfowl and waterbirds are best viewed from the series of hides dug into screen banks, or from any of the three observation towers, but there’s high-tech help for visitors who want to see the barn owls which breed in the site’s buildings: a close circuit tv link to the nest. Live CCTV images can also be viewed of osprey - the first to ever successfully fledge young in Dumfriesshire.

Natterjack toads are usually heard before they are seen - in Spring, the evening air fills with the clamour of their mating cries. To help the colony to prosper, WWT controls pond levels, keeping the water high in winter when the toads are hibernating, then lowering it from March onwards to create warmer shallows to encourage spawning and tadpole growth.

Goose use takes a toll on the landscape – reducing its nutritional value and letting in weeds. So, in summer, the grass is cut to thicken and improve the sward and pinpoint which areas will next need re-seeding. Strips of wild bird cover are sown along the margins of re-seeded fields to provide winter seed for yellowhammer, twite and tree sparrow.

Caerlaverock’s most unusual resident is the tadpole shrimp. At 220 million years old, the species is believed to be the longest surviving on Earth but now only known here and in the New Forest.

Other free-living attractions at Caerlaverock are the heronry at Cockpool, its wildflower-rich meadows and regular badger watches.

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