At the beginning of the month, our Conservation Adviser - Graham Hart - held our inaugural County Wildlife Sites (CWS) owners event, hosted by two CWS owners at their site in Thorpe Morieux. 

Frances and Roland Bee, welcomed other CWS owners to Newson's Farm with a brief history of their site followed by a guided walk with discussion on habitat creation and management. Graham provided information on the CWS networks and led a round-table discussion where attendees shared the challenges and successes with their own County Wildlife Sites.

Kate, an attendee of the event, said:
“I found the event very worthwhile, helpful and also a pleasure. What a lovely couple the Bees are! I have got home to absolutely pouring rain so I’ve put off my walk round ours until tomorrow, but I do feel really inspired and a bit less daunted.”   

It was a wonderful first event for the CWS owners network. Graham will be hosting more CWS events for CWS owners, if you would like information about the network and future events, please email: teamwilder@suffolkwildlifetrust.org

Congratulations to Henry, one of our Youth Board Members, on becoming an apprentice bird ringer!

With the help of a licensed bird ringer, Henry has been helping to ring birds this month around his home, including barn owl chicks, robins, kestrel chicks, and spotted flycatchers.

Good luck with your bird ringing journey Henry, we look forward to following along!

Excitement has been high for birders visiting our reserves this month!

A red-footed falcon (Falco vespertinus) has been enjoying the large dragonflies at Carlton Marshes and displaying impressive hawking skills. Red-footed falcons are a vagrant species with a large breeding range from countries in central Europe to north-west China. Their presence is recorded annually in England but in varying numbers. Having one visit Carlton was quite an event. 

Thank you to Lynne Warner - volunteer at Norfolk Wildlife Trust - for sharing some wonderful shots of the red-footed falcon with us.

At Trimley Marshes near Felixstowe, 6 spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia) were been caught on camera. These birds breed in only a handful of locations across England so it's a pleasure to see a 'canteen' (collective noun for spoonbills) on our nature reserve. Such sightings are a wonderful indication of the success of our habitat creation.

Thank you to Phil Whittaker and Dan Brown for sharing these spoonbill photos with us.

Throughout the summer months, our reserves teams are busy conducting a wide range of species surveying and monitoring, including plant surveys. Our Valley Fens Assistant Warden - Debs Crawford - has been conducting plant surveys at Thelnetham Fen and Redgrave & Lopham Fen and, the latter being one of the most important wetlands and richest lowland fens in Europe.

This month, Debs found a strong number of rare marsh helleborine orchids at Thelnetham Fen, and beautiful displays of centaurary at Redgrave.

Meanwhile at Lackford Lakes, our Visitor Experience Officer - Mike Andrews - took some wonderful photos of viper's-bugloss in full blue bloom in a meadow close to the visitor centre. 

A sunny weekend welcomed visitors to Knettishall Heath for an open day exploring wildlife on the reserve. It was wonderful to have over 200 visitors get stuck in with nature activities including a guided walk, river dipping, wildflower seed planting, and minibeast hunting. We also had additional stalls with items for sale and an information stand from Suffolk Police. 

Thank you to Brecks Fen Edge & Rivers LP for their support funding our families activities and guided walk, as well as our team of incredible volunteers who helped make this day possible. 

Knettishall Heath nature reserve is open year-round for visitors to enjoy and we also host guided walks on this reserve throughout the seasons. Visit our events page to see upcoming walks.

Early conservation works have begun at Worlingham Marshes including the improvement of dyke systems and species surverying - a dragonfly survey conducted this month found 14 species including four-spotted chaser. Our Broads Warden Lewis Yates has also been working with the British Trust for Ornithology on tagging cuckoos on the reserve as part of a state-of-the art cuckoo tracking project.

Our north-east team have also been hosting walks and talks on this reserve plus boat trips to local people to explore the reserve and learn about the site's potential for wildlife. During events this month, attendees were fortunate to see barn owls hunting and gliding marsh harriers, Find discovery events for Worlingham Marshes on our events page. 

These initial conservation works and events were made possible thanks to support from the National Lotter Heritage Fund,

We are thrilled to have crossed the £300,000 milestone in our Worlingham Marshes fundraising appeal! Thank you to everyone who has donated so far, wehave nearly raised 40% of the £775,000 target to complete the first two years of works on the reserve. Close to our Carlton Marshes and Castle Marshes nature reserves, this new site will help extend the wildlife corridor through the Lower Waveney Valley; creating a bigger, richer, and better connected landscape for nature.