St Nicks

After getting tonnes of questions, our Recycling Coordinator Sam Taylor wrote a blog in the hope of clearing up some of the confusion around plastics… Aren’t all plastics recyclable? How do you make a plastic anyway? Why will you recycle a plastic bottle but not a yoghurt pot? Well, read on to find out the […]

Highlights Long tailed screecher – new bird at St Nicks.. bugs sunbathe while beetles hide in the dark.. brains seen all round the reserve. Weather The first Wildwatch Wednesday of the year was cold but sunny, and we enjoyed some sunshine on all but one of the four Wednesdays. Temperatures ranged from 4o – 8o […]

The Water Rail (Rallus aquaticus) is a skulking, furtive member of the same bird family as Coot and Moorhen. The latter is quite often see on the becks at St Nicks, Coots almost never and the same for Water Rail until.. ..on the 3rd December 2014, a solitary member of the Wildwatch team was standing […]

Highlights Over-wintering summer visitor? .. skulking rail still present.. blank on Shieldbugs..return of Water Vole.. Lemon Disco! Weather Not surprisingly, temperatures fell throughout the month. 12C was recorded on 7th December, falling to 2C on the 28th, the latter day being bright, sunny and “nithering”! Birds The long-staying Water Rail was seen on all four […]

Our Recycling Coordinator Sam Taylor shares her tips for reducing waste at Christmas. Please always check with your local council if you are unsure whether materials are recyclable at the kerbside. This is my “bah humbug” approach to Christmas. Not really. I love Christmas, but I hate waste and for some reason Christmas really is […]

Post written by Jonathan Dent, St Nicks Nature Reserve Manager, who leads our heritage skills courses As the seasons change, our attention shifts from work in the grasslands and becks to our maturing woodland areas. We are in the middle of a five-year plan of thinning, developed with the help of our local Forestry Commission […]

Highlights A secretive bird… even more secretive mammals… Halloween beetles (and bats!)… a new gall for the reserve Commentary For various reasons, we were not able to complete a Wildwatch blog report for October, so this is a combined October / November report. We’ve been looking out for visiting winter birds, and had a few […]

Park Rangers Nick Denman and Harriet Lowery have just finished their six month volunteer internships. We sent them some questions about their time at St Nicks to find out more about the role and what they got out of it. How would you describe St Nicks to someone who hasn’t heard of it? Harriet: St […]

Summary of the day written by St Nicks Events Officer Ivana Jakubkova; more great photos can be found on Lewis Outing’s website We couldn’t have wished for a lovelier day on which to hold our annual Autumn Fayre this year, on 15th October! We had plenty of sunshine to keep us warm and there was […]

St Nicks patron and local poet Anneliese Emmans Dean was helping Autumn Fayre 2016 visitors write 2 acrostic poems about autumn. Here they are (or as much as we could decipher): Comforting cake for an acrostic Eating cake… Leaving allotment bounty on my godparents’ doorstep Ensuring environmental policies radically transform our city, our nation, our […]