After the flooding at the weekend Low Barns nature reserve is back open for visitors. Some of the footpaths have been damaged by the rain so please take care when you’re out on the reserve. Paths may not be suitable for pushchairs or wheelchairs but we are working hard to get them repaired as soon as possible.

Visit our Low Barns volunteer page for images of the flood and the aftermath.

This summer explore venues across Tyne & Wear by bike, scooter, public transport or on foot.

Every time you do so your child can stamp their Green Explorer card. When they have three stamps they get a fantastic prize.

Durham Wildlife Trust’s Rainton Meadows nature reserve is one of the participating venues, pick up your Green Explorer card there and find out which other venues take part.

Free prize draw!

If you write your details on the back of the Green Explorer card you and your family will be put into a prize draw to win one of a number of fantastic children’s bikes. There are also brilliant runners up prizes.

Kids (must be under 16) – if you walk, cycle, scoot or take public transport to three of the 30 cultural venues in Tyne and Wear over the summer holidays you will get a Sustrans prize!

At each venue on the map below you can get your Green Explorer card stamped. When you’ve collected three stamps you win a free prize which can be collected from the venues.

But hurry! Scheme ends on 31^st August.

A retirement village has donated its finalist winnings from a prestigious awards ceremony to help community groups look after wildlife sites in County Durham.

Middleton Hall Retirement Village, near Darlington, has donated the £500 cheque to Durham Wildlife Trust after being commended in the Pinders Healthcare Design Awards 2013 for its Middleton Woods apartments.

The Middleton Hall management team received the cheque after reaching the top three in the Independent Living category during a ceremony at Lords Cricket Ground in London.

The event was compered by television and musical theatre star Russell Grant, an active campaigner for more research into Alzheimer’s disease.

Jeremy Walford, managing director of Middleton Hall Retirement Village, said:

“The Pinders awards are one of the biggest events of the year for the care industry so we were delighted to make it to the final.

“We have so much wildlife at Middleton Hall, which both staff and the residents encourage and look after, so it seems fitting to put the money towards fostering more wildlife in County Durham.”

Middleton Hall Retirement Village is surrounding by 100 acres of woodland which is teeming with wildlife. It is a corporate member of Durham Wildlife Trust and runs many wildlife projects in its grounds, such as providing nesting boxes for owls, wetland areas for breeds such as moorhens and a woodland Wildlife Walk trail which residents and their relatives can enjoy.

Durham Wildlife Trust said the money would be used to help community groups around Darlington cultivate their own Wildlife sites.

Jim Cokill, of Durham Wildlife Trust, said: “The £500 will be used to support work on wildlife sites across the Darlington area. Hopefully we can use the example set by Middleton Hall to inspire other communities to do their bit for nature.”

Hannah’s Meadow is an unimproved species-rich upland hay meadow with lots of the wildflowers in bloom in June and early July – the best time to visit.

To find out more about Hannah’s Meadow please visit our Reserves Pages.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused, but the refurbishments will provide improved facilities for all our members, visitors and the many schools groups that visit every year.

If you would like further information on the works at Low Barns please call Julie Anderson on 0191 584 3112.

We need to know what YOU want to see happening in YOUR Derwent Valley
to make sure that the bid represents the local communities in the area.

Please fill in our online survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/derwentvalleynortheast.

If you have ideas for the project that you would like to put forward please contact Jim Cokill at Durham Wildlife Trust on 0191 5843112.

This year’s Spring Conference on 20 March will explore practical methods that are currently being applied in a variety of very different situations and environments to integrate ecosystem services into key decisions made at the national, regional and local scales.

For more information about the IEEM Spring Conference click here.

For more information about the EcoServ project visit the project webpage.

A group of 11 wildlife organisations has come together to urge everyone to press their MEPs to vote for farming that supports nature in one of the most significant votes ever held in the European Parliament. 

Over 80,000 people have already sent a message to their MEPs using the website uk.farmingfornature.eu that was launched earlier this week.

With a few hours left until the vote, DWT is urging MEPs to champion wildlife-friendly farming by voting for a truly green Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).  In these financially-straitened times it’s vital the public money spent on farming is invested in measures which will benefit the environment.

DWT is urging as many people as possible to email their MEPs in the next few days to swing this knife-edge vote in nature’s favour.

Please ask Members of the European Parliament to vote to:

• Ensure all farmers and land managers undertake ‘greening’ measures that will help protect and restore nature in return for direct payments from the CAP
• Reject double subsidies where a farmer or land manager would be paid twice for the same activity, to ensure that public money is not wasted
• Ensure farmers and land managers have to comply with all relevant EU environmental and animal welfare regulations in order to receive their CAP payments, such as the Water Framework Directive which ensures our rivers are clean and healthy.
• Provide dedicated support for nature-friendly farmers and land managers

It is the first time that the 73 MEPs in the UK will vote on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy, the EU-wide system of payments to farmers and land managers worth over £3 billion a year in the UK.

Go to the uk.farmingfornature.eu website to make sure a clear message is sent to MEPs.

That’s why Durham Wildlife Trust is urging everyone to press their MEPs to support real reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. For the first time the 73 MEPs of the UK have the opportunity to vote on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), expected on Wednesday 13 March 2013.

Ahead of the vote non-Government organisations are today launching a public campaign enabling people to lobby their Members of European Parliament (MEPs) to ensure the CAP is reformed, and nature-friendly farming is given the recognition and support it urgently needs.

If there’s one single thing that has shaped the UK’s countryside over the last 50 years, not always for the better, it’s the Common Agricultural Policy.  We believe it must be radically reformed to protect and restore the ecosystems on which people and wildlife depend. 

Some high quality agri-environment schemes, such as England’s Higher Level Stewardship Scheme, have shown what can be done to protect and restore nature in our agricultural landscapes.  But their coverage has been limited. The new CAP must ensure that all farmers and land managers are able to play their part in farming for nature.  

Durham Wildlife Trust is asking Members of the European Parliament to vote to:

1. Ensure all farmers and land managers undertake ‘greening’ measures that will help protect and restore nature in return for direct payments from the CAP

2. Reject double subsidies where a landowner or manager would be paid twice for the same activity to ensure that public money is not wasted

3. Reintroduce requirements for farmers and land managers to comply with EU  environmental regulation, such as the Water Framework Directive which ensures our rivers are clean and healthy

4. Provide dedicated support for nature-friendly farmers and land managers

Send your MEP a message here.

Two Bitterns which arrived at Durham Wildlife Trust’s Low Barns wetland nature reserve near Witton-le-Wear several weeks ago have now been joined by a third.

Bitterns, secretive birds which are difficult to see as they move silently through reeds at water’s edge looking for fish, are thickset herons with pale, buffy-brown plumage covered with dark streaks and bars.

Image by Derek Bilton

Their dependence on the decreasing number of reedbeds and a very small population make them a Red List species and despite a recent recovery in numbers, they remain one of the most threatened birds in the UK.

Mark Richardson, Reserves Manager at the Trust, said:

“We do get the occasional Bittern on our reserves but to have three at the same one is a first. A lot of work has been done to improve Low Barns and the presence of Bitterns is a huge encouragement. We would not expect the reedbeds to be large enough to support breeding Bittern at Low Barns but you never know. It would be fantastic to see them breed at Low Barns in the future.”