PRICKLY PALS

This is Merrill, the latest Hedgehog to be released into the Coastal Park by our friends at Prickly Pals North East. He's been looked after by one of their dedicated volunteers over the winter period having been found poorly and underweight, conditions which meant he would never have survived hibernation. We've had close ties to Prickly Pals for a number of years now, a lot of their volunteers are members of the Coastal Conservation Group which are based here at the Coastal Park. It's a fantastic group, they take in sick, injured and orphaned hogs and nurse them back to health until they are well enough to be released back to the wild. It's not an easy job either, some hogs need round the clock assistance, even through the night. The dedication of the volunteers is incredible. When the hogs are ready they are released into as safe an area as possible, which is where the Coastal Park comes in. There's lots of areas off limits to the public so the Hedgehogs can make a home in the park with relatively no interference. There's been lots of hogs released in the past few years and we now have a fantastically healthy population on the property which is great news as their numbers have dropped drastically in the UK. Here in the Coastal Park, Hedgehogs are doing mighty fine! 

Hedgehog City!

Recent releases 

A lovely healthy wild Hedgehog 

HELPING OUT OUR SKYLARKS

The Skylark is a familiar bird in the UK, renowned for its magnificent song and display flight. Once very common, it's recent and dramatic population declines have put it on the Red List, in fact the UK population fell by 54% between 1970 and 2001. We are very lucky here at Souter as we still have a reasonably healthy population on the property, but there's no harm in trying to increase the numbers that breed here. So this past week we've been busy creating a number of Skylark Plots in the hope of extending the breeding season a little longer than usual. Skylarks occupy open fields to avoid predators. They nest on the ground, in vegetation that is no more than 50cm high. This vegetation must be open enough to give the birds easy access to the ground. In order to sustain the population they need to make 2 or 3 nesting attempts between April and August. That's where the Skylark Plots come in! What we do is cut an area of 10m x 10m and keep it short while the grassy area around it continues to grow higher. This way there is suitably short areas later in the year that Skylarks can use to breed. It's a proven technique that has worked in lots of other places, so we are very hopeful of it working here. If nothing more it will be an interesting experiment, and if we don't try these things we'll never know if they work or not. And let's face it, if we can help our feathered little friends surely it's worth a go!

Ranger Dougie mowing the lawn!

What we're hoping to achieve, lots of lovely healthy chicks!

Birds Are Brilliant

This week has been our annual "Birds are Brilliant" week here at the lighthouse, and what a fantastic week it has been! Monday, Wednesday and Friday was birdbox building, Tuesday and Thursday was various bird crafts and finally Sunday is bird identification for beginners. This is the third year we've done our "Birds" week and it's proving to be one of our most popular weeks of the year, especially when it comes to building the birdboxes. What we do is over the winter period order a load of treated timber and cut the various pieces needed to make a birdbox and pre-drill them so that all the children have to do is screw the pieces together (with our help of course!). The kids absolutely love making the boxes, especially using the electric drills. Of course, we are the ones controlling the tools but we let them believe that they are doing it themselves. The first 2 years we averaged around 50 boxes per day, for 3 days, which meant we were making 150 boxes per week, a fantastic amount! This year we went even better, making around 180 in a week. It's incredibly good fun, and when the children are holding the finished boxes in their hands that they have made 'by themselves' the smiles on their faces are absolutely priceless. But not just that, it's fantastic news for birds, as there are now all those new boxes out there ready to be used. Almost 500 birdboxes in 3 years. Now that is something to be proud of!

Lots of timber cut ready to put together

Happy smiley faces!

WINTER CLEANING

Souter Lighthouse officially reopened to the public this week after having the month of January off. Contrary to popular belief we did not spend the time letting our hair down and partying hard. If only! No, we took the opportunity to give the property a complete and thorough deep clean. As we are open 7 days a week for most of the year it's really difficult to dedicate the time needed to give the lighthouse a really good clean,so the only time we can do it is when we are closed to the public. Obviously the place gets a general clean every day, but to get into all the nooks and crannies takes a lot more time and effort. So that's what our Curator Kate and her wonderful team of volunteers have been up to this winter. And if I may say so they have done a mighty fine job indeed!

The volunteers working hard behind the scenes

The new images we've added look fantastic

The property is looking fantastic after its thorough winter clean

PREPPING THE WILDLIFE GARDEN

During the winter months we've spent whatever time we could spare preparing the wildlife garden for the coming season. Since the garden was transformed in 2013 it's became one of the most photographed parts of the property. If you'd seen the place before 2013 you'd have never in a million years thought that would ever be the case! To put it mildly, the garden had become an absolute eyesore. It had become a dumping ground for anything and everything with horrible rank grass the only thing growing. That was until a group of local volunteers called the Coastal Conservation Group decided to take it over. What followed was months and months of incredible hard work. First they had to dispose of all the rubbish. Then they cut down all the grass, leaving them with a completely blank canvas. The first thing they did was build a pond, but then decided to build a stream running to it! Of course the stream needed a bridge to go over it, so they built one! Then they created a bird feeding station with a viewing screen. Then they planted a load of berry bearing shrubs around the borders and finally planted a wildflower meadow. The end result was an an incredible area for both wildlife and people. Well done guys!

Ranger Dougie working hard

CLEANING OUT THE BIRDBOXES

Today we had the pleasure of cleaning out all the nestboxes and doing some much needed maintenance on a few of them to make sure they are ready for the coming breeding season. We have over 80 boxes of various types scattered all around the coastal park, and since putting them up 2 years ago they have proved invaluable to the local bird population. One species in particular have really taken a shine to our boxes, Tree Sparrows, which is excellent news and have really helped build the population up in our area. We now have extremely healthy numbers of this vulnerable species, something we are delighted about. Once the breeding season starts we monitor the boxes to see which ones are occupied, by which species, and if occupied we see how many eggs are laid, how many hatch, and how many chicks fledge. If we get the opportunity we ring the chicks before they leave the nest. All of the data collected is then sent to the British Trust for Ornithology, or BTO, as well as kept here on site.

We have quite a lot of open fronted boxes as well as the traditional hole types

A lovely big clutch from last year, just what we love to see

THE NEW BIRD FEEDING STATION

Over the last couple of weeks we've been working hard creating a fantastic new addition to the coastal park, a new viewing screen overlooking a brand new bird feeding station. There's been a lot of hard work involved in sometimes questionable weather conditions but we are delighted to say that the building work is finally complete. The paving slabs were finished this morning which were the last things to do construction wise, and now all there is to do is put some plants and shrubs in and add more bird feeders. While we were finishing off this morning we were delighted to see a number of bird species already paying the feeders a visit, including Robins, Blue Tits, Blackbirds and even a pair of Bullfinches. It's going to be a fantastic place for birds to feed and a superb place for birders to watch them.

The beginning!

The roofing was added and painting begun

A nice comfy bench was added

The paving slabs down and made wheelchair friendly

Adding a drinking/bathing pond

A couple of feeders were put up and if you look closely you can even see they're already in use