Biodiversity
Birdwatching
The Cotswold Water Park is an excellent birding destination throughout the year; ranging from 20,000 wintering waterbirds, to 21,000 wintering gulls, to vast numbers of breeding warblers along with Nightingales, Little Ringed Plover and Common Tern, there is always something of interest here!
The 151 lakes and associated wetland habitats provide a plethora of birding opportunities suitable for the new birder and experienced twitcher alike!
Due to the central location of the CWP and the vast area of wetland habitats, bird monitoring and ringing studies are showing that the CWP is an important stop-over for feeding for migrating birds, both during the spring and the autumn. Almost anything can turn up!!!
Key Facts
- Smew and other wintering duck November to March; try Lake 29, Cleveland Lakes (pits 74 and 68a/68b), Lake 44, Lake 57, Lake 114 and Lake 16.
- Peak Hobby passage, where flocks are up to 25 are recorded every year feeding over many of the lakes; try Lake 57 and 58. Unpredictable but worse persevering!
- Nightingales arrive in the last week of April; be sure to listen out throughout May!
- Check the CWP Bird blog daily for further updates.
The Cotswold Water Park Birding Blog.
Link to the CWP Birding Blog here
The blog was launched in 2006 to promote birding in the CWP and to provide a central repository for birding information for the CWP. The CWP lies across the county boundary, partly in Wiltshire, partly in Gloucestershire, with a small area within Oxfordshire. As would be expected the county birding websites (see links below) promote only their county and so this blog was launched to promote the CWP as a destination for birders.
The blog will highlight what has been seen in recent days and will indicate good locations to visit. Visitors to the CWP are frequently overwhelmed by the large number of pits and lakes (151 as of December 2011) so this blog will start to highlight good starting places. Additional information to encourage birders to visit other areas of the CWP have also been recently drafted.
Nature reserves to visit if you are new to the area are as follows, a but a good walk almost anywhere will produce a good variety of common waterbirds and songbirds;
- Cleveland Lakes (Lakes 74 & 68a/68b) and Waterhay (dry reedbeds and scrub within pits 68c and 68d) (Cotswold Water Park Trust Reserve); check out the new permissive footpath and 3 bird hides. Allow 3+ hours.
- Shorncote reedbed (Lakes 84/85) (Cotswold Water Park Trust Reserve); short walk from Upper-up Playing Fields car park in South Cerney, to a small reedbed and open water complex. The adjacent gravel pits are also worth exploring from the public rights of way.
- Cokes Pit LNR (Lake 34) (Cotswold Water Park Trust Reserve); adjacent toKeynes Country Park; good views of a range of waterbirds, including Red-crested Pochard and a large breeding Black-headed gull colony.
- North Meadow NNR, Cricklade (Natural England); visit during April for spectacular displays of Snakes-head Fritillaries.
- Whelford Pools (CWP 111/111b), Roundhouse Lake (CWP 116), Richardson-Amey Reserve (CWP 119/119b) (Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust Reserve); see here for more information
- Lower Moor Farm/Clattinger Farm/Sandpool Farm (Wiltshire Wildlife Trust Reserves)
For general information on birding in the CWP
Download information on birding in the CWP
Updated 16th December 2011
