Visitors discover our newest hide
We opened our New Discovery Hide last weekend with a special preview for winners of our ‘Win a Day Out with Dad’ contest. The new hide has mounted telescopes, binoculars and lots of signs and books on the wild birds of WWT Arundel Wetland Centre. Inside it is painted in warm tones with soft furnishings and wildlife wall paper. The hide sits large posts over the water - the children watched a little troop of mallard ducklings swim directly underneath it. Through the new viewing scopes we watched an oystercatcher repeatedly drive a crow away from the nest where his female was sitting eggs on the far gravel bank opposite the hide.
Last weekend was our first BioBlitz weekend at the reserve. British and Irish Association of Zoos promote the BioBlitz concept, encouraging zoos across the UK to find as many species of plants, insects and wildlife as possible. Researchers and volunteers surveyed along the Mill Stream and the Arun River edges of our site. We also surveyed our front ponds and the wet meadow outside our perimeter fence. The WWT manages these wild areas but we are not able to survey them often, instead concentrating on the main reserve.
We started the Bioblitz with a bat survey on Friday night. We counted five species including a large serotin bat flying along Mill Road. The real excitement came when we saw Daubenton bats back over Arun Riverlife, finding insects to eat over the newly refilled lake. We found 25 different species in Friday night’s moth trap, less than usual but June has been cold. During the plant survey we found rare small teasel and some Meadow Rue plants that are found only in the Arun Valley in Sussex. The insect survey on Saturday was the highlight for me – I spotted and photographed a scarce chaser dragonfly, the only one I have ever seen on our land. Beautiful!
