Print pageSeasonal highlights
Each season brings a different experience at our nature reserves. In spring, the air is filled with birdsong as they compete to establish territories and attract a mate. In summer, look out for young birds making their first venture into the outside world. Autumn brings large movements of migrating birds - some heading south to a warmer climate, others seeking refuge in the UK from the cold Arctic winter. In winter, look out for large flocks of birds gathering to feed, or flying at dusk to form large roosts to keep warm.
Spring
Drumming woodpeckers, singing nightingales, willow warblers, chiffchaffs, garden warblers, blackcaps, treecreepers, nuthatches, blue, great, coal and marsh tits, wrens, robins, song and mistle thrushes, blackbirds, 'roding' woodcocks, 'churring' nightjars. Pink-flowered lousewort along some ride verges, primroses, bluebells and wood anemones occur patchily.
Summer
Look out for the rare heath fritillary butterfly along rides and in young coppice areas from mid-June to mid-July. Common spotted orchids present in some glades and ride edges. Dragonflies, damselflies, up to 30 species of butterflies and a wide range of other insects can be found in the more open areas.
Autumn
A wide range of fungi can be hunted for on the ground, on dead wood, branches and twigs, and even growing out of live trees. Easily the most conspicuous, and abundant in some years, is the fly agaric, with its white stalk and a bright orange cap flecked with white spots.
Winter
This is a very quiet time on the reserve, but you may encounter a mixed-species flock of tits, perhaps joined by a treecreeper. Numbers of resident blackbirds and goldcrests may be augmented by wintering birds from Scandinavia.