WARNING! Main car park and Tern Hide CLOSURE this weekend!

Fri 28th April – Mon 2nd May

Challenging Events Ltd are leasing the main car park for use during their Huntsman triathlon event on Sunday, including time either side of the weekend for their event set up. As a result their will be no car parking available to visitors in the main car park adjacent to Tern Hide from Friday to Monday. There will be no access to Tern Hide at all on Sunday and access may also be limited, or impossible, for all or some of Friday, Saturday and Monday.

Pedestrian access to the Ibsley Water viewing platform will be possible throughout this period and nor is any of the rest of the reserve affected. Visitors to the nature reserve will use the parking on the Education Centre side of the nature reserve – but as this has limited capacity you may prefer to visit on a different occasion.

If you do choose to visit us over the bank holiday weekend and particularly on the Sunday while the triathlon itself is taking place, please be particularly vigilant for race marshals and athletes around the entrance to the nature reserve off Ellingham Drove. There should not be any spectators/supporters in this area but just because they are not supposed to be there does not mean that there won’t be any!

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Shovelling silt

On Sunday our Young Naturalists were treated to the lovely task of clearing all the silt, mud and other debris from the main car park by Tern Hide, following the recent flooding, a task they got stuck into and I think quite enjoyed!

Before

I think the thing they enjoyed the most, was trying to sweep the water lengthways down the puddle then through the outflow pipe…

Playing aside, they did scrape off a lot and Bob was very impressed by their efforts.

After lunch they then had a go at pewter smelting, as we had all the kit to hand and they hadn’t tried it before. They used the play-dough to make a mould before melting the pewter shot over the fire and carefully pouring it into the mould.

Their finished items looked great, we will have to do it again:

Pewter pine cone and mould by Izzy Fry

Finished items – alder cones, shells, pine cones and acorns

After the session Izzy went to the Woodland Hide to see what she could spot and sent in these brilliant photos:

Thanks Izzy for sharing!

Our Young Naturalists group is funded by the Cameron Bespolka Trust.