News | WWT

Check out this new book

I would like to say a very big thank you to David Hindle who has written a book called 'Around Preston: Heritage, Natural History & Walking' and kindly agreed to donate half of the royalties to WWT Martin Mere. The money will go towards work on the re

7 December 2012

Fantastic PR from our Whooper swan numbers

We have received some great PR from the story of us having a record number of Whooper swans. We are in the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph today - plus we have had a call from BBC Breakfast so fingers crossed we will be on there tomorrow morning. It does m

4 December 2012

Record numbers of Whooper swans at WWT Martin Mere

A dusk count yesterday morning of Whooper Swan produced a record number of 2480 birds at WWT Martin Mere Wetland Centre. Centre Manager, Andy Wooldridge, said: “We usually get peak numbers of Whooper swans in mid to late December so I still think number

3 December 2012

Manicure for cows??

Today, our cows have had their hooves trimmed. This is part of an annual health check. All of our cows graze on wet ground which means their hooves don't get worn down and we need to maintain them for their own health. So how do you trim a cows hoof? The

28 November 2012

Whooper swan counts

We undertook a swan count at Martin Mere on 20 November as part of a national swan count that was taking place between 19 and 21 November. We look at the number of swans, the brood size and therefore the % of young swans. Some really interesting informati

27 November 2012

How has the bird fair gone?

We are now well into the second day of the North West Bird Watching Festival. We had 1300 people come through the doors yesterday ane we are already up to 800 today so I am really pleased with the weekend - it is a shame that it rained this morning, but t

25 November 2012

BBC Radio Lancashire come along to visit us

John Gillmore from BBC Radio Lancashire came in to do a live show between 1pm and 4pm today - if you tune in now you can hear Andy Bunting from In Focus being interviewed about our reserve list. Other interviews have included our Marketing Manager talking

7 November 2012

Free School Visits

Free school visits are starting next week. The first school to visit us is St James CE Primary School from Bolton who will be here on Monday. Also joining us next week is Marsh Green Primary from Wigan and Rice Lane Infants from Liverpool. The schools are

2 November 2012

Swan facts

Our swan feeds have started this week known as our Swan Spectacular. The swans will come up to feed everyday at 3pm and 3.30pm. We have now added two morning feeds at 10.30 at the swan link and 10.45 at the Raines hide. At the moment we have 1384 swans a

2 November 2012

Butterflies and Dragonflies

With Autumnwatch being on our televisions this week, we thought we would share with you a bit about what they are discussing. One of the main areas they are covering is how the weather is changing and how is effecting different species. Did you know this

1 November 2012

Fungi Flourishes

It has been a terrific year for fungi. With the damp weather conditions and slight sunny spells we have had, it has been the perfect weather to allow fungi to flourish. Fungi is not around for very long however we have managed to capture these great pic

31 October 2012

Flamingo catch

We have been catching up our Greater flamingos today for their check-up that they receive every 2 years. We have to do this for a number of reasons: The adult flamingos have their micro-chip checked for identification purposes as well as their darvic rin

30 October 2012

Caring for birds this time of year

As autumn starts and temperatures drop and the leaves on the trees change we know autumn is here. Autumn is a great time to wrap up warm and get outdoors, before the weather gets really cold! It’s a time where you can really enjoy wildlife and see the c

26 October 2012

October half term continues..

We have had a busy week this week as October half term kicked off and it continues through to next week as well. We still have loads of activities for families to enjoy. It’s a great way to spend an autumn day as there is loads to see and do. Families