Sandwell Valley

Photo: Bullfinch

Jase the ace — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 22:26:00 GMT

Photo: Chaffinch coming in to land

Jase the ace — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 22:23:00 GMT

Photo: Feeder frenzy

Jase the ace — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 22:22:00 GMT

Photo: Busy feeder

Jase the ace — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 22:20:00 GMT

Photo: Robin

Jase the ace — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 22:18:00 GMT

Photo: A bit of everything

Jase the ace — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 22:17:00 GMT

Blog post: Nick's Notes January 2013

Chris Edwards — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:32:00 GMT

Sandwell Valley Reserve Volunteer Update

Winter 2013

Crunching through the snow last week and looking out across the frozen lake and marsh there was no mistake that this was proper winter weather. The speed at which the bullfinches returned to the feeders after I had topped them up also confirmed how hard it is for our wildlife when temperatures plummet and snow covers their food. It is an attractive and exciting time as well though and we have seen some amazing birdlife over the last few weeks. Highlight would be the 97 goosander over Christmas except that this may even be eclipsed by the 11th January's incredible count of 80 common snipe and 10 jack snipe! I am fairly sure that these are reserve records and there was even a woodcock in there for good measure!

The team have all been working hard across Sandwell and Middleton and we are expecting a very busy couple of years ahead with major landscaping projects on sites and new visitor facilities (more of that in a minute) at both reserves too. There have also been some pretty major changes happening across the whole of the RSPB with the society looking to improve its brand and engage with more supporters and partners to tackle the bigger challenges that are out there. Exciting as all this is, it does mean that we have had to review where we need to put our time and reduce the amount we are doing in other areas. The most obvious outcome of this is the decision to close the reserve on Thursdays from now on. Thursday has always been a quieter day with no work parties, family activities and few visitors so it was the day we selected to close in the week. We will review this in the spring but for the time being it will be like Mondays when the paths are open but not the car park or hide.

Another change for the future is to concentrate our work party efforts more on two of the four Fridays per month. We would continue to have opportunities to volunteer on the other Fridays but feel that if we promote the two 'major' work parties and aim to complete full days this will help with bigger jobs such as burning the huge amount of willow in the marsh. Reedbed cutting and burning would also be better suited to a full day with more people. We will therefore advertise the first and third Fridays of each month as reserve work parties and have a recruitment drive to push more volunteers to these days. Our excellent volunteer leader Sam will continue to run these but will get more support from Stefan or myself who will be at site for these main Fridays.

So the big new visitor centre plans are ready to go. As this was such a complicated process with so many requirements plus the situation with the old building etc. we have asked that the architect Ian Bramble to spare time to come and present and explain the plans. This means that any general or technical questions can be answered by the expert too rather than me who knows very little about building design! To try and suit as many people as possible Ian will therefore be coming to the reserve on the 23rd February. This is a Saturday which hopefully will be good for most people and he will be there from 10 am-12.30 pm. We'll also make sure that there are plenty of nibbles and drinks to stave off the cold. If any one cannot make this though the centre plans will be on display from the 23rd onwards with accompanying Q&As. We'll send out a reminder closer to the date but please do make a diary note now if you can as it would be great to see you there.

So a slightly belated Happy New Year from all the team and here's looking ahead to a great 2013. Many thanks to you all for all you do in your own roles and in your own unique way.

Nick

Nick Martin

Senior Site Manager

RSPB Sandwell Valley and Middleton Lakes

Forum post: Re: Winter Robins (and Wren)

bob's_retired_now — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 21:45:00 GMT

Very true, if we got everything first time we wouldn't need to go out again(-:). I was at Slimbridge the other week and sitting outside one of the cafe shops I found the local Robin would take crumbs off my toecap if i had my legs crossed. It would have made a nice picture but for the necessary min focussing distance.

Blog post: Good News

Chris Edwards — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 15:16:00 GMT

How about this for a Christmas present for our reserve - our volunteers carried out a snipe count in the marsh today and to their great delight they counted 40 common snipe and 4 Jack snipe. Add this to a further 20 common snip seen on the island and our reserve currently hosts a healthy colony of these fascinating birds.

These numbers far exceeded the expectations they had for the numbers of birds hiding amongst the reeds. So despite grave misgivings of a month or so ago, snipe numbers are above what we hoped they'd be.

Thanks to all the volunteers who carried out the count today in rather wet underfoot conditions.

Blog post: Saturday at Sandwell

Chris Edwards — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 14:28:00 GMT

I'm on duty today and the reserve is fairly quiet so I took the opportunity to have a walk around the reserve accompanied by Alf, one of our regular Saturday volunteers. The weather is dry but there's a chill breeze picking up.

Birdlife was surprisingly sparse, maybe the weather has forced birds to take cover. We spotted a thrush (couldn't decide if it was a song or mistle), saw a redwing fly overhead, a jay darted across the reeds and we startled a few snipe from the island - did we really do that?!

The lake had goosander, teal, tufted and possibly gadwall, but we couldn't be sure. There was a great deal of activity at the slipway - free bread on offer.

We missed the redpoll & siskin which were seen near Forge Mill Farm by a visitor.

Back to the SPA for a hot drink and a mince pie - Merry Christmas.

Blog post: Changes to opening times

Chris Edwards — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 14:06:00 GMT

Over the course of the winter months the office and hide will no longer be open on Thursdays. This is only a temporary measure and normal service will be resumed from Easter onwards.

We apologise if this causes some inconvenience.

Blog post: Who put that there?!!

Chris Edwards — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 15:26:00 GMT

I received reports all day from anxious visitors who were concerned about the large deposits of litter seen in Forge Mill Lake close to our hide.

I had to reassure them that no, it wasn't someone's shed roof that had been thrown in it was in fact our newly constructed tern rafts.

Last week our volunteers, helped by a contingent of students from Birmingham University, built two large wooden rafts and they were both floated out onto the lake in time for this weekend. It is hoped that by the time the breeding season comes around next spring, then these rafts will have become part of the scenery and provide nesting sites for our common terns.

The rafts certainly look the part and we look forward to favourable results in due course.

Well done to everyone involved.

Blog post: Nick's Autumn Notes

Chris Edwards — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 10:52:00 GMT

Greetings and I hope that you are surviving the first few biting days of the winter chill. While there are still colourful leaves on the trees there is a lovely feeling of change in the air and around the reserve the winter residents and visitors are certainly the main performers. I noticed that the goosander have been perching on the old boom and providing good views from the hide and viewing screen. The snipe have been creeping in close to the hide and seem to like the new forshore on the lake especially now it has some additional vegetation cover. Unfortunately I have not been able to spend much time out and about but have certainly been working hard behind the scenes on plans for the exciting future of RSPB Sandwell Valley.

The extensive community consulatation has now concluded and we were delighted to have hundreds of responses from a wide cross section of volunteers, visitors and non-visitors and in various different formats. Many thanks indeed to those volunteers who worked really hard on this, warranting particular mention; Nigel Palmer who hand delivered hundreds of questionaires to local streets and also Susan Spencer who went one stage further and conducted house to house interviews. Both approaches meant that we were able to get a great insight into what might make some of our visitors even happier and also what might encourage those who have yet to discover us.

As part of this work but also as an ongoing project we have started a community forum. This will represent many user groups and those that have an interest in different elements of the nature reserve. These forum members include those that will champion; health, culture, heritage, youth, volunteering, nature, learning and many other facets to what the site can offer.

From the consulation we have created an 'Activity Plan' which outlines the events, training, staffing, volunteering, signage, promotion and many other aspects of our people engagement work going into the future. This will be submitted as part of our stage two Heritage Lottery Fund application along with the results from our consultation and also plans for the new centre. The stage one application saw the money ring fenced for us but now the stage two will really confirm that the works we are planning are achievable and in line with the HLF requirements. The result of this application will be known next year when we will then be able to push on and start delivering.

The new centre design has been almost completed. There are still tweaks and amends being made to ensure that the centre works for the staff, volunteers and most importantly visitors and schools whilst remaining on budget. The new layout though looks really good and it will be a fantastic space to deliver a top quality visitor experience that compliments the wonderful wildife. I am sure that having inputted into the plans and also waited a long time to get to this stage many of you will be itching to see the design so I will share it as soon as it is complete.

Other things I have been working on are the Nature Improvement Area funding stream that will allow some habitat works next year. A full overhaul of the Visitor Safety programme, the new ten year management plan for the reserve and also an audit of our current volunteer roles.

As always please contact me if you have any queries, concerns or comments, all the best, Nick

Blog post: The Swan!

Mike Ixer — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 18:38:00 GMT

As many of our regular visitors will have observed, the resident male swan on Forge Mill Lake is a bit of a brute. Some volunteers have even christened him 'Attila the Swan' because of his aggressive behaviour.

A few weeks ago during a quiet Saturday afternoon in the hide it was observed that 'Attila' was in fact wearing a ring on his leg. It is one of those things that I had assumed someone else had reported but nobody had so after a slightly farcical 30 minutes trying to read the leg ring, I went home and submitted it via www.euring.org.

Today I received a lovely card through the post from the man who ringed the bird. It reads:

"Dear Mike,

Thank you for your record of orange ringed mute swan R00, which arrived via WWT Slimbridge today. You will see from the details below it is a while since I have had any sightings of this one, so to know it is paired and successfully breeding is great. Details are as follows:

R00: Metal Ring W16800 CYGNET RINGED 11-10-05 R[IVER] SEVERN, WORCESTER - ARRIVED WITH BROODMATE (R99-W16799) + PARENTS [...] IN FLOCK OF 130 APPROX.

Sighted

19-02-06, 28-03-07, 16-05-07, 31-10-07 and 08-12-07 all R. Severn.

It is interesting to note the gaps between sightings, I try and check the flock weekly at least, so it suggests R00 wasn't spending much time there and may have been visiting your area before settling to breed.

Yours Sincerely, Edward"

A massive thanks to Edward for this detailed information. It is interesting to know that our (now huge) male swan was a cygnet, and therefore hatched, in 2005 so he is now 7 years old. After asking around we cannot remember how many years this male has been breeding on Forge Mill Lake but it is possible that after the last sighting on the River Severn he took up residence here.

Let's see how much longer his reign of dominance over our lake continues - there are certainly no signs of him being overturned any time soon.

Mike

Photo: The Challenge Project

Chris Edwards — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 13:04:00 GMT

Photo: The Challenge Project

Chris Edwards — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 13:02:00 GMT

Photo: The Challenge Project

Chris Edwards — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 12:59:00 GMT

Blog post: The Challenge Project

Chris Edwards — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 12:23:00 GMT

We provided the venue for forty sixteen year olds to experience conservation work her at Sandwell Valley.

Arriving at some unearthly hour on a Saturday morning (10am!) We soon had them warming up, stretching and then getting kitted out for a full days work in the field. An alien activity to many.

They were all taking part in the final project of the summer which involved these young adults giving back to society - and a fantastic job they did as well.

Considering the poor reputation this age group has nationally, I can personally vouch for their honest endeavours at doing something different and with a great benefit to the many visitors we have.

Well done to you all and we'd gladly welcome you back.

Photo: Many Hands Make Light Work

Chris Edwards — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 12:00:00 GMT

Students having fun whilst taking part in The Challenge project

Forum post: 22/09/2012 - Sandwell Valley

Trugga — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 21:12:00 GMT

Took an earlier morning walk this morning (09:00) from the carpark a Priory Woods.

It was quite earie with the mist from the pond steaming in the morning sunshine:

Took a walk round the two ponds, with the only water birds I saw being Coot, Mallard and Swan:

Spent a couple of hours, then returned to the carpark, where I spotted a couple of grey squirrels and three rats.

I was most pleased to once again see the Nutchatches:

T'was quite a plesant morning's stroll.

Lawrence