News
Nature... a force to be reckoned with
Lynda attended our writing workshop on the 9th of March and very kindly has shared her writing with us.A morning Thumbnail Nature Writing workshop at WWT Caerlaverock. The theme was to explore “haecceity”, a term new to me. A quick Google search state
17 March 2024
Government admits delay on toxic lead shot ban despite its presence in 93% of pheasants destined for dinner tables
The government has quietly admitted in response to a parliamentary question that progress on banning the use of toxic lead shot for hunting has been delayed again with a decision on the issue not expected until “later this year”, despite it considering restrictions since 2021.
15 March 2024
Somerset nature reserves will be made Wetter for Waders with 800k funding boost
Hundreds of hectares of wetland habitat will be restored, or enhanced, across WWT Steart Marshes and Bridgwater Bay National Nature Reserve (NNR), thanks to more than £800,000 in funding from the government’s Species Survival Fund.
15 March 2024
Making a mess at Powhillon: The Wilder, Wetter Caerlaverock Diaries no.1
My first week as Project Officer has been as busy as you’d expect for Caerlaverock. We had a digger out at Powhillon (one of our northern holdings) with the aim of making some scrapes, channels and blocking drains. The site looks very messy now but it w
14 March 2024
What is WeBS?
Ever heard someone referring to webs and then when they started talking about birds instead of spiders were a bit thrown? Well that's because they were talking about WeBS, the British Trust for Ornithology's monthly Wetland Bird Survey. It is a UK-wide su
13 March 2024
Is it a skylark?
I’m out on the merse one morning conducting a survey. The sun is shining. The wind is calm. All very picturesque. Suddenly a bird starts singing, effortlessly rising higher and higher in the air, its song seems to last forever. I’m mesmerised. But the
11 March 2024
Wetland Word of the Week 2
Our second wetland word of the week is...... flobby, a Scots word used of clouds meaning they are large and indicating rain. We get a lot of that down here at Caerlaverock, being in South West Scotland but it definitely keeps our wetland wet! Scots is
11 March 2024
Green winged teal and more sightings highlights
We have had a special visitor causing a bit of a flutter this week: a drake (male) green winged teal. It was first spotted on the Folly Pond this Wednesday (6th March) and was moving around the site the rest of the week. Very similar to our Eurasian teal
9 March 2024
Wetland Word of the Week 1
For our Words for Wetlands programme we are creating a dictionary of wetland words. Our first is merse......meaning the marshy land where the river meets the sea, specifically applied to the Solway Firth. Merse is the word we use when talking about the sa
7 March 2024
We all know what March means...
It’s getting to that time of year: we are nearing the end of daily swan feeds.The swans are getting ready to head back to Iceland for their summer holidays. We are seeing fewer and fewer of them on the Whooper Pond during the feeds and will soon be able
4 March 2024
Rich Hearn. A tribute.
Last week we lost Rich Hearn. We lost a valued colleague. We lost his outstanding skills in monitoring, research and action planning for water birds. And we lost a voice for policy change to save wetlands across the world. We will miss his friendship, his humour, his adventures, his antics, his passion for birding and his unfailing energy to share his time, knowledge and skills with anyone who needed it.
27 February 2024
From yelling 'stick together' to 'it's all about me!'
It’s a day where the distance is hidden, the close is blurry and grey and so as I head down the Saltcot Loaning, I lean more to using ears than eyes. We love to label and compartmentalise times of year but today fits no man-made season: my ears tell me
27 February 2024
Introducing our new feeding station
After several months of planning and postponing and dreaming and rearranging, we have finally completed our first project – redesigning the bird feeder station. The station is along the Peter Scott Trail in an area of wet woodland. This habitat provides
20 February 2024
Willow Weaving
Before Christmas, a fence along the Saltcot Loaning blew over, an unfortunate event... Or was it?It gave us the exciting challenge of creating our very first willow screen. Willow is amazingly flexible due to its fast-growing nature causing a lack in cell
18 February 2024
Observations from the Big Hideout
Excitedly I grab some old binoculars after hearing that we have a certain visitor to our Whooper pond.Although they delight our team and visitors from time to time, I am yet to see one.It is with glee that upon hurriedly reaching the observatory, I am gre
16 February 2024