The rangers at Stanwick Lakes have had a brilliant year working alongside our volunteers to improve the site for the people who visit us and the wildlife that call it home. Here are some of the highlights and recaps for the year.
Some of the most fun we have as rangers is working with children who visit us to learn and experience the nature around site. We have enjoyed many pond dipping and den building sessions with schools and families and love seeing the creativity, knowledge and confidence that the children develop with us. Our favourite den furnishings this year were a slice of pie, a flowerpot made from a tin can and a vegetable garden created with sticks!
Our practical work follows a detailed management plan that is specific to the site and which aims to give us the best chance of inviting nature to flourish. Using our new boat, we island-hopped to clear vegetation, creating more bare ground for nesting birds and giving them a full view of the lake around them. We not only improve the site for birds but for insects and plants too! We manage our meadows to give wildflowers the best chance of growing, in turn providing insects with a new habitat. Conservation work is at the heart of what we do as rangers and so there’s far too much to summarise, for example we manage woodland, reedbeds, meadows, lake margins, pathways, play equipment and more! Overall, we strive to do as much as we can to provide a place for nature to thrive and the abundance of wildlife on site is an indication of our success.
The people who help us truly make managing Stanwick Lakes possible. Our regular volunteers come each week and give it their all in supporting the site (but not without their fair share of biscuits!) Thank you, volunteers! We also enjoyed the days spent with corporate volunteers who joined us for team games as well as giving us a massive helping hand with our conservation work. They helped us clear willow around solstice lake, do our annual reedbed thinning, improve our play area and manage our woodlands.
Our hard work has paid off! We welcomed a great number of diverse species on site this year. Our birdwatchers have marvelled at bearded tits, marsh harriers, hundreds of northern lapwings, bittern and many more. We also saw a great array of fungi, insects and mammals such as otters in our waters and muntjac deer snuffling around the feeding station or hiding amongst the trees.
We also welcomed our latest addition to the team, Isaac! He has been here since July and has learned so much since then. He joined us in the summer and has loved every second since. He gives a big thank you to all our lovely visitors and the staff at Stanwick! His favourite parts of the job are seeing amazing wildlife and helping our guests to enjoy the site.
The rangers wish everyone a very happy 2024 and thank all those who have visited and helped us over the last year.
