Category: Lakes

  • Establishing Wetlands

    By The Bevis Trust In , , | December 16, 2016

    We have been very busy down at Ricketts Mill. The plan is to turn the old trout farm into a focal point for the Trust’s activities where students and land managers can come to get first-hand experience of management techniques. The existing lake was built for trout fishing and drops sheer at the banks to…

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  • Frosty Days

    By The Bevis Trust In , | December 1, 2016

    It’s been a busy time with the beavers. We worked flat out to get the new beaver fence ready at the new enclosure, trapped a family of five and got them in, only to find that one of the adults found a weak place in the new fence and escaped. To make matters worse, three…

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  • Momentous News!

    By The Bevis Trust In , , | November 24, 2016

    It has just been announced that the beaver is now recognised as a native species in Scotland! The implications for the rest of the UK have yet to be seen but this can only be a positive step for the Welsh and English beaver reintroduction projects. Read more about it here

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  • Beavering Away

    By The Bevis Trust In , | November 8, 2016

    October has been dry and we have had a lovely Indian summer. Yesterday there were still dragonflies on the ponds. We have been very busy on the farm making the most of it while it lasts. Pete, James and Linda finished the fiddly bits of fencing down at Skinny Dipping Pond that has now become…

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  • Baseline Survey

    By The Bevis Trust In , | September 6, 2016

    Due to the success of our breeding beavers this year we thought it only fair to give them a little more space. We are creating a new pen for them, it will be approximately 1ha in size and will give the occupants access to willow, a pond, streams, bog and thick vegetation. Alicia, the Welsh…

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  • Beavers on the Lake

    By The Bevis Trust In , | August 1, 2016

    Although we have seen beavers taking willow branches into the lodge on the lake since early May, we have yet to see the kits. Drew was out late the other night and caught images with the thermal imaging scope, but he could not be sure if they were beavers or water voles. Are water voles…

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  • Rewilding and More

    By The Bevis Trust In , | July 21, 2016

    Last week Jo and I attended a meeting at the Knepp Estate down in West Sussex. There, the owners Charlie Burrell and Izzie Tree have devoted their 3,500 acre estate to an ambitious re-wilding project.We took the opportunity to have a walk around some of the estate.   Later that evening I enjoyed staying in their…

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  • A Busy Evening

    By The Bevis Trust In , | July 13, 2016

    A very busy evening on the lake last night. The goslings, now all pretty much fully feathered, were practicing their flying skills to a huge cacophony from their parents. The nest in the new hide has yielded its first chicks – at least three hungry wee swallows. The little yellow diamond shaped open beaks were…

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  • Another Beaver Family.

    By The Bevis Trust In , | June 27, 2016

    We’ve been trying to find out what is happening with the beavers on the middle pond. Drew has put up a couple of camera traps and I have been seeing them use a burrow up at the deep end of the pond. The problem is that their pond backs up into a narrow heavily wooded…

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  • Beavers

    By The Bevis Trust In , | June 24, 2016

    We are pretty confident that the top and lake beavers now have kits but we are not sure about the middle beavers. Last night I spent a little time observing the pen and didn’t spot any kits but I did manage to get close to this chap. I sneaked up to the fence and he…

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