Woodchester Park is a wonderful place to find and enjoy wildlife.
Protected in this secluded valley, the woods, lakes and pasture provide food and shelter for many different kinds of wildlife.
The entire valley is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Buzzards, owls and woodpeckers breed in the woodland and the lakes are home to coots, moorhens, mallard and mandarin ducks.
The lime-rich soils encourage colourful wildflowers like primroses and aquilegia as well as more uncommon ones such as orchids, Solomon's-seal and lily-of-the-valley.
Woodchester is nationally famous for its bats and badgers.
Greater horseshoe bats have breeding roosts in the Mansion, where they live during the summer months, emerging at dusk and dawn to feed on insects, particularly dung beetles in cow pats left by grazing cattle.
Lesser horseshoe, Pipistrelle, Daubenton's and long-eared brown bats are also found in the valley, usually hunting flying insects in the woods and pasture and over the surface of the lakes. More about bats.
With 12 main setts excavated in the sandy soils of the wooded valley, Woodchester has one of the largest concentrations of badger setts in Britain. The undergrowth offers some protection for the sett as well as easy access to pastures where the badgers hunt for earthworms and other small animals and plants. The Ministry of Agriculture monitor Woodchester's badgers as part of a long-term research programme. More about badgers.
Roe deer and the smaller Muntjac deer can be regularly seen, especially on the wooded upper slopes. At dusk, when the valley is quiet, the deer move down to the pasture to graze.
Other species of small mammals have also been noted in the valley; however, there are no up-to-date records. The valley was once known to support a notably large population of yellow-necked mice.
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