Wild at Hull: North Cave Wetlands

Sunday 14 March 2010

North Cave Wetlands

We've finally gone on a trip out today. It feels like months indoor but the last couple of weeks have felt very spring-like. North Cave wetlands is an old sand and gravel quarry which has been managed to produce an array of different wetland habitats and is is one of the newest Yorkshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve (open to the public in 2004). There are deep lakes, shallow lagoons, little ponds, wet fields and even a maize field where different crops have been plated to attract seed eaters. The different habitats in the reserve attract a range of birds (200 species have been recorded so far, of which around 50 breed here), and butterflies (24 sp.) and damselflies and dragonflies (18 sp.).
There are three hides, one of them, the Turret hide, in placed in a beautiful vantage point from which you can have almost an all round view of the reserve, including the sandy cliff which contains a colony of Sand Martins in the summer. The hides are plastered on informative posters and ID charts on birds and other fauna.
We saw two Rabbit feeding and their burrows are all around (also lots of Mole hills).
Today there was a large flock of noisy Black-Headed Gulls, which breed in the reserve. Great Crested grebes were courting and a Carrion Crow fed on a dead rabbit, while another rabbit (alive) fed just a meter away!