54.89263,-3.67295
- Grid ref: NX928566
- Lat/long: 54.89263,-3.67295
- Postcode: DG2 8AH
- More...
Wildlife awards
Mersehead is one of the best places for wildlife in the UK.
Top things to do in Spring
- All around the Wetland Trail, lapwings, snipe, curlews and redshanks perform their aerobatic displays
- Listen out for skylarks as they fill the air with song over the fields and merse, and natterjack toads call from coastal pools in a dusk-chorus
- Barnacle and pink-footed geese gather in huge flocks before departing for their northern breeding grounds
Top things to do in Summer
- This is the best time of year to see mammals on the reserve including otters, badgers, roe deer and bats
- The woodland and hedgerows are alive with warblers and buntings in song while barn owls and tawny owls hunt at dusk
- The plants of the shoreline and merse are in full flower, butterflies abound and dragonflies and damselflies hawk the ditches
Top things to do in Autumn
- Look to the skies as huge flocks of barnacle geese arrive on their Solway wintering grounds from Svalbard in late September and October - one of nature's great spectacles
- From the hides you can see thousands of dabbling ducks, such as teals, wigeons, pintails and shovelers on the shallow wetlands
- On the Coastal trail, feeding waders and shelducks follow the tide in and out on the sandflats and migrating waders rest and feed on the wetlands
Top things to do in Winter
- Mixed flocks of farmland birds, including tree sparrows and twites, feed in the cereal stubbles and wild bird cover
- On a cold winter's day, use our Visitor Centre to scan the skies for birds of prey, whilst enjoying a hot cup of Fairtrade coffee
- Be mesmerised by the swirling mass of starlings, as they perform their aerobatics before heading into their reedbed roost
Latest blog posts
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27 January 2012
Posted by Becky
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21 January 2012
Posted by Becky
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15 January 2012
Posted by Becky
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