The bird hide, secreted in a quiet spot in the Church Shrubbery, is a great way for families to spend a while watching the birds flocking onto the feeding stations.
Winter can be a particularly difficult period for birds so a feast of mixed seeds, peanuts and niger seeds are always greeted with a flurry of feathers. During the winter months staff give them an extra special treat of cardoon seed heads from the garden. From the hide visitors are regularly greeted with colourful woodpeckers, pheasants, nuthatches and treecreepers, as well as different types of finch and tits.
A walk through the parkland reveals larger birds like kestrel, buzzard, cormorant and heron, as well as winter migrants such as fieldfares and redwings – look out for the flash of a kingfisher, often glimpsed near the Island Pavilion bridge.
The island at the lakeside is home to many wildfowl with swans, Canadian geese, ducks, moorhens and coots.
As dusk approaches the elusive deer sometimes creep out from the hedgerows to venture into the parkland.
