The new year has bought with it a variety of weather. From frosty mornings at the start of January to days and days of endless rain and finally, at the end of February, some glimpses of sunshine. Across Dorset there has been lots of flooding where the ground is so saturated the excess water has nowhere else to go. Thankfully, the park has remained relatively flood free with our ditches doing their job of keeping the water off the paths. Lots of visitors have been putting our dog wash to good use rinsing off muddy paws!
Those of our visitors who have braved the elements will have noticed that, despite the horrible weather, the heathland is showing signs of waking up. The bright yellow flowers on the gorse bushes, the daffodils lining brocks pine and the symphony of bird song in the mornings all promise that spring will be here soon. And I think we are all very grateful for that.
Our reptiles are beginning to wake up too. One of our volunteers spotted a beautiful smooth snake curled up in heather. As the weather continues to warm, we will be keeping a close eye out for more reptiles basking on the paths as they wake up from their winter hibernation. We’ll let everyone know as soon as our popular sand lizards are spotted in our enclosure.
The rangers took a break from our usual winter pine clearance work to welcome lots of visitors during the half term. The few dry days of the week were very busy, with lots of our visitors enjoying our activities including archery, nest box building and Sammy the sand lizard’s valentines trail.
As January is our quietest month of the year, it was the perfect opportunity to give our Visitor Centre some much needed TLC. We closed our doors for 3 weeks and, when we reopened in February, the building had had quite a facelift! The shop and ranger desk have moved position and the whole space is much brighter and more spacious. Do come and have a browse of our new products on sale in our bigger and better gift shop. We are so pleased that everyone who has come in since the reopening has said how much better the space is.
And there’s still more to come. The next phase of the project is to redesign our education area which we are hoping to have completed by may half term. Keep an eye out for our new displays and some special new arrivals…ribbit.