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
Watch displaying lapwings, redshanks, snipe, curlews and skylarks. Listen for grasshopper warblers reeling their song. Look out for migrant bird species such as greenshanks, whimbrels and green sandpipers.
Summer
Watch for the black and brown hairstreak butterflies amongst the blackthorn. Listen for Roesel's bush cricket in the long grass. Watch hobbies hawking for insects. Scan the ditches for dragonflies, including the hairy dragonfly mid-May to late June, and the ruddy darter end of July into September.
Autumn
Wheatears along tracks and paths. Migrating wading birds including common sandpipers, ruffs, ringed plovers and dunlins. Brown hares in the grassland areas. Yellow wagtails feeding on insects disturbed at the feet of cattle.
Winter
Look for pintails, gadwalls and shovelers among the flocks of wigeon and teals. Hunting peregrines, hen harriers, short-eared owls and merlins. Stonechats using teasel as a look-out post. Large flocks of lapwings and golden plovers.