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 | 27 July, 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!

Making Meadows activity

Staff-led | 23 July and 14 Aug

Reserve warden Kate invites you to come and learn about the power of wildflowers, in particular yellow rattle, before taking your turn to harvest and sow yellow rattle seeds (known to us as wildflower gold!). A fantastic activity for anyone interested in wildflowers who are keen to get hands-on and help us make more wildflower meadows!

Den Building

Staff-led | 25 & 31 July, 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 | Various dates

Join our reserve team with volunteer Melissa for two special events where you will see conservation in action. During our Meet small mammals event (27 July) we will be carrying out a live survey of small mammals on site here at WWT Washington.

We'll also be doing a public bat box check (17 August) looking for bat activity. While we're hoping to see small mammals and bats during these events, 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!

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