Enhance your summer visit with these top tips

Exploring our wetlands during the summer is exciting at the best of times, but plan your day out alongside some of our fun hands-on activities and make your visit a great one!

Here's our top tips for things you can get involved in:

Postcard trail

Self-led | daily

Pick up a trail guide and search our site for Pelican Postie's missing postcards. With quirky stories and tales from around the globe, the fun illustrated characters will guide families around our wetlands, learning loads of cool stuff as you go.

Pond dipping

Staff-led | 1, 9, 15, 21 and 30 August

Join us at Pondzone and enjoy searching for all manner of pond creatures big and small! This interactive activity is always popular with families and is a great way to introduce kids to the interesting underwater world. They'll use nets and magnifying glasses to search for things like flat worms, caddisfly larvae, water boatman and many more, using ID guides to help them figure out what wildlife they've found!

Moth mornings

Staff-led | 18, 22 and 31 August

Join warden Andrew as he opens his moth trap to see what's inside, as part of his moth monitoring for our site. Look for spangled gold, peach blossom, white ermine, the might poplar hawk moth and many more species, with the chance to get up close to these incredible insects!

Den Building

Staff-led | 8, 16, 20, 25 and 30 August

Head down to the pines opposite our flamingo flock and spend some time building a den fit for a king! Our team will show you how to use branches and materials to build a den, and of course each den needs a name! Everyone loves getting stuck into this activity, so make sure you come along!

Conservation in action

Staff-led | Saturday 17 August

Volunteer Melissa alongside our reserve team will be doing a public bat box check looking for bat activity around our wetlands - fantastic if you'd like to know more about these fantastic mammals. While we're hoping to see bats during this, we can't guarantee it. But what we can guarantee is lots of facts, images, videos and more from our team about the importance of these species!

Crafts

Staff-led | Various dates

We have a variety of crafts for you to enjoy this summer. Join a special family-friendly art workshop with local artist Amy Brooks every Monday of the holidays. Or join our education team in Hollowood for Natural Printing and Clay Faces (14 August) and enjoy getting stuck into things like hapa-zome, painting with feathers and more.

And the rest...

Our daily otter and flamingo talks come as standard and are on twice a day for you to enjoy (otters 11.30am and 2.30pm / flamingos 11.45am and 2.45pm). Our collection of ducks, geese and swans and wild reserve is just waiting to be explored, not to mention our play area if the kids have any energy left to burn!

Full activity calendar

View and download our full summer calendar to help you plan your visit - find activities the whole family will enjoy!

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