Wildlife of the Wansbeck Valley Morpeth

Wildlife of Morpeth and the Wansbeck Valley

lower path Scots Gill local nature reserve Morpeth

Summer in Scot's Gill local nature reserve. This is the lower path that runs along the river; a great place to see dippers, kingfishers, nuthatch and tree creepers, particularly in winter. Photo AWD.

We:

Organise talks and events such as fungal forays, bat walks and woodland walks
Raise money to make improvements to our sites.
Survey flora and fauna - we are building a database of records on this website.
Influence management of the sites.
Are involved in new projects such as Castles, Woods and Water.

Download the latest (Spring 2006) edition of the Friends newsletter Parklife here (257 kb Adobe .pdf format) . Read about the forthcoming events.

Produced by the Friends of Carlisle Park. We are a group of enthusiastic local people who care about their local environment. We work with Castle Morpeth Borough Council's rangers to improve local nature reserves and other wildlife sites. We look after:

Carlisle Park Local Nature Reserve and the William Turner Garden.
Scot's Gill Woods Local Nature Reserve
Borough Woods Local Nature Reserve
Abbey Banks Woods
Davies Wood Local Nature Reserve
Bracken Bank

For more information and how to join us (membership is free download form here), contact:
Emma Evans 01670 500771 or
Sam Talbot 01670 535319 or
focp@castlemorpeth.gov.uk or

Friends of Carlisle Park,
c/o Castle Morpeth Borough Council
Coopies Lane Depot
Coopies Lane
Morpeth NE61 6JT

The Friends are supported by the Lottery Fund, English Nature and Castle Morpeth Borough Council.

Painting of a male goldcrest by John Caffrey

Look here to see the records of plants, animals, fungi etc that we are starting to compile. You can contribute to the records.

Left - a male goldcrest painted by John Caffrey. Britain's smallest bird can be seen in the area in winter. You can read John's wildlife articles in the Morpeth Herald.

Our latest venture is to produce leaflets describing the wildlife in the local woods in winter. We have two sets of leaflets two packs, each costing 90p. They are available at the Office in Carlisle Park (see phone numbers on this page) and the Tourist Office in the Chantry.

The Winter pack describes short walks in Scots Gill and Borough Woods and includes 18 drawings of common winter birds . All drawings are by local artist John Caffrey. The second pack is a guide to wildlife hunting in Spring - see opposite New logo . It has photographs of plants, plus drawings and paintings of butterflies and birds by John Caffrey. It will be available from about the 13th of March.

We have packed a lot of information into each leaflet to show you how much there is to see in the area. Once you have done these walks why not go further and see what you can find? If you see anything unusual please report it to the FOCP. You can download a report form here (WORD format). Post the record or email as an attachment to focp@castlemorpeth.gov.uk

Here we will be adding locations and sketch maps to show you where to find wildlife.