Wildlife at Chard Reservoir Local Nature Reserve
There’s always something interesting for people who love birds and wildlife at Chard Reservoir.
In summer, lots of flowers grow in the meadows, including different kinds of orchids. The Knapweed Meadow turns bright with purple and yellow flowers.
Dragonflies are often seen near the stream in Rushy Meadow. You might see common blue damselflies, shiny demoiselles, and broad-bodied chasers flying around.
The reservoir is home to about 23 different kinds of butterflies. You can find speckled wood butterflies in the woods, and meadow browns, ringlets, and gatekeepers in the meadows. Some butterflies, like the brown and purple hairstreak, lay their eggs on certain trees. In winter, people try to spot their eggs on the branches, because the butterflies stay high up in the trees.
The woods are full of birds, and you can often see or hear nuthatches, treecreepers, and woodpeckers. Volunteers have put up lots of bird boxes in the woods, and blue tits and great tits often use them.
On the water, you might see ducks, swans, coots, and grebes all year round. In summer, many types of gulls visit, like black-headed and herring gulls. If you’re lucky, you can spot a Mediterranean gull, which has a very black head and bright red beak and legs. Swallows, house martins, sand martins, and swifts fly low over the water to catch insects, especially when the weather is bad.
Around the water’s edge, you can hear reed warblers and Cetti’s warblers, and in the bushes, blackcaps sing. Chiffchaffs sing their simple song from the willows and alders, and sometimes you’ll hear a willow warbler. Kingfishers sometimes zip across the water, especially near the bird hide, looking for food.
For daily bird sightings, you can visit the Chard Reservoir Nature Reserve website.
It’s harder to see mammals at the reservoir, but sometimes you can spot deer or a fox near the fields and water. Otters also live in the waterways, though they are rarely seen. The woods and hedges are home to the rare dormouse, which is protected by law. Dormice live in trees and need connected woods and hedges to find food and a mate. They sleep during winter and wake up in late spring until late autumn. Dormice eat lots of different fruits, nuts, and flowers. They make their nests out of grass in thick bushes or at the bottom of hazel trees. For more info, you can visit the PTES website: Hazel dormice facts – People’s Trust for Endangered Species.
Fish like carp live in the reservoir and are most often found near the bird hide. You can also find pike, bream, tench, and roach here. The reservoir is a home for the European eel, which is a very rare fish. The eel’s life is amazing—it starts as a baby eel in the Sargasso Sea, thousands of miles away, then swims all the way here to grow up. When it’s an adult, it swims back to the Sargasso Sea to have babies and then dies.