A NATURAL HABITAT

Wildlife and Nature

The Bore Place estate is home to a wide variety of wildlife including a big population of reptiles, bats, deer, butterflies and other insects. We actively manage our woodlands, hedgerows, waterbodies and fields to encourage biodiversity. The estate is certified organic, meaning we avoid using pesticides and fertilisers. We also avoid mowing grass in areas of our gardens and create field margins within our pasture to increase habitat for wildlife. If you visit in the spring or summertime, you will notice that our meadow behind Bore Place features an array of wildflowers and is buzzing with insects. At sunset, it is easy to spot some of our bat population as well as other nocturnal mammals.

The Estate (Sub menu)

Thanks to funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and the support of volunteers, we have identified and are monitoring six indicator species across the Bore Place estate and neighbouring countryside: earthworms, dragonflies/damselflies, common blue butterflies, skylarks, reptiles, and dormice. By identifying and monitoring species, we hope to find better ways to ensure that the estate is managed in the best possible way to encourage wildlife whilst also improving the quality of the soil. To find out more about our work to improve soil quality and how this benefits biodiversity, please visit Our Soils.

What to look out for on a visit to Bore Place throughout the year

Click on a season below to find out more:

Spring

Flowers

The meadow behind Bore Place House has our greatest diversity of wildflowers during the spring.
Look out for yellow rattle, bugle, bird’s-foot trefoil, meadow buttercup, clover, vetch, and stitchwort.
These flowers all provide a vital food source and habitat for invertebrates, so please don’t pick or trample on them.

Cuckoo

The cuckoo is a grey bird with dark grey and white bars across its chest and underwing.
They are a similar size to a dove and have long tails and pointed wings.
Cuckoos migrate to the UK from Africa during the spring and early summer.
You will be able to tell when they have arrived by the distinctive call of the male cuckoo as he searches for a female mate.
This call can be heard across Bore Place from around April-June.
If you want to catch a glimpse of a cuckoo, you can look for them along our woodland edges.

Newts

Newts are amphibians, meaning they spend time both in and out of water.
At Bore Place, we have three species of newt – Smooth Newts, Palmate Newts and Great Crested Newts.
Adult newts can be found in our ponds during the spring and summer.
During this time, they will mate and lay their eggs on pond plants.

Summer

Butterflies

A number of different butterfly species can be found at Bore Place during the summer.
Some of our most frequently spotted species include meadow browns, gatekeepers, small whites, and red admirals.
Different butterfly species will be found around different habitats at Bore Place.
Meadow browns could be found in our grasslands, whereas silver-washed fritillaries might be found in our woodlands, and large whites are most likely to be seen in our market garden.

Bees

We also keep several beehives at Bore Place, so you are likely to see plenty of honeybees buzzing around our meadows, gardens and grassland.

Bats

The bat species we have recorded at Bore Place are common pipistrelles, soprano pipistrelles, brown long-eared, and noctule bats, as well as myotis bats.
These bats are known to be roosting in most of the buildings around the site at Bore Place, and it is also likely that they are roosting in trees across our land.
Bats are most active during the summer.
Around dawn and dusk, bats can be seen foraging for insects around the buildings at Bore Place.

Autumn

Reptiles

At Bore Place, we have found grass snakes and slow worms around our site.
We also have previous records of common lizards and adders.
You are most likely to see reptiles along hedgerows or woodland edges as they bask in the sun.
We have over 200 bitumen felt reptile mats that we use to monitor reptile populations around the site at Bore Place, as reptiles sometimes warm up underneath them.
If you come across these mats, please could you avoid lifting them up, as this can disturb any reptiles using them.

Badgers

Badgers are nocturnal, so are most likely to be seen at night if you go for an evening walk along our trails, you might spot them dashing between hedgerows on site.

Winter

Lots of our wildlife will be hibernating and less easily spotted over the winter but keep your eye out for wintering birds such as grey herons and kestrels.
Now is a lovely time to look at identifying trees from their bark and buds, which can be very distinctive. These can help you find species again in the sea of green when it is summer.