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Roe Deer Antlers

Roe deer antlers regrow each year

Only the male roe deer have antlers. Each year, in late autumn they shed their antlers and grow new ones. It doesn’t take long, after casting off the old ones, before these new roe deer antlers start to grow. If you look very closely at this “December” buck (above) you can just see the “nobs” of next year’s antlers.

By February these antlers have put on a spurt. A velvety, soft hairy skin covers and protects them while they grow and harden.

Their antlers are nearly fully grow by mid March but still covered in velvet. This fine buck was sitting in the North Pool field last year.

Spring

In April and May the blood supply to the velvet dries up and it falls off to reveal fully grown, hardened antlers. Often the deer will help this process along by rubbing their antlers on posts and tree trunks to remove the velvet.

Read more about Portbury Wharf’s Roe Deer here

 

Keeping water voles safe

A Portbury Wharf water vole having breakfast in the rhyne
A Portbury Wharf water vole breakfasting in the rhyne

Keeping water voles safe at Portbury Wharf is very important. So the warden and his Portbury Wharf Nature Reserve Volunteers have been busy repairing the hurdles alongside the rhynes. You may have noticed them along Water Vole Lane, the path to the sea wall.

The hurdles are there to keep the water voles safe by deterring unwanted swimmers.

They live in the rhynes and will soon start breeding (we hope). In the UK their numbers are falling, so it is important that our Portbury Wharf water voles thrive.

The vegetation along the bank is their lunch and they eat a lot of it! It also keeps them hidden from predators. So if we (and our dogs) stay away from the water and don’t trample down the bank, that will help them a lot.

Water voles can be hard to spot. But if you are lucky enough to see one here, do tell us.

 

You can read more about water voles here

Gordano Valley lapwings

Gordano Valley Lapwings

This morning at sunrise I watched 18 lapwing lift off from the North Pool. Once upon a time you would have seen flocks of a hundred strong. Sadly over the last 20 or so years, numbers have fallen dramatically.

Portbury Wharf is an important staging post for wildlife heading into the Gordano Valley. That is exactly where these lapwings were going this morning.

Bringing back lapwings to the Gordano Valley is a project that the Avon Wildlife Trust have been working on.  Let’s hope we see many more of these delightful birds in the future.

Look out for these lovely Gordano Valley lapwings on the pools in winter time.

Winter Birds

Look out for the winter birds:

From August onwards lots of birds migrate here to escape the harsh northern winters. These winter birds will stay until the spring before heading back up to breed so in the meantime we get to enjoy them.

  •  Look out for the winter birds . On the pools will be the winter waders and ducks which are visiting us from the cold north. In the hedgerows you may see the winter thrushes, feeding on the berries.

 

On or by the water

Keep a look out for these birds on the ponds and along the shoreline:

  • The winter ducks including the  wigeon ,  teal  and  shovelers  and even the occasional  pochard . You can see these on the ponds and the shoreline.
    Shovelers with dark heads, wedged beaks, white/russet bodies and wigeon. The wigeon are the ones that whistle.
  • The winter wading birds such as the  dunlin ,  lapwings  and  curlews .
    Lapwings and the smaller dunlins
In the hedgerows
  • You might also see the winter thrushes on the hedgerows. The  fieldfares  and  redwings  will stay until all of the berries are eaten and then move on.
Amphibians
  • Amphibians – Over the next month you will see  frogs, toads and newts  migrating to the ponds, particularly Frog Pond. They do this every year in winter to mate and lay their spawn here. If you want to help them migrate safely get in touch with the Portishead Toad Patrol.

|Click here to see where the Frog Pond is.