As we jump into a new year, grab a brew or a pint, one last mince pie or the final bar from your selection box, and check out some of the highlights from Wild Haweswater in 2024…
January
We started the year strong in our nursery – the largest native tree and plant nursery in the Lake District, with an incredible amount of Alder growing, thanks to the magic touch of our tree nursery team Jo and Julia, supported by their volunteers.
The RSPB launched a new report – ‘Without nature, there is no food’. From providing raw materials and energy, to the food, water, and clean air we need to survive, nature is the foundation of every aspect of human life. And the loss of nature means these vital services are under threat. Read it here.
Our farming team battled snow storms, to ensure our sheep, cattle and Fell Ponies were well fed with our very own Swindale Meadows hay.
The Woodland Hide, run by our pals Wild Intrigue, got off to a flying start to the year with an abundance of Red Squirrel and woodland bird sightings. Book a photography session in this magical hide in the heart of Naddle Forest here.
As many of you know, Black Grouse is one of the species that we’re hoping will return to this part of the Lake District (and beyond) as a result of our landscape restoration work (find out more about why they disappeared from the National Park here.) We were delighted therefore to have a report from local photographer and friend of Wild Haweswater Patrick Neaves, who managed to catch a snap of this Black Grouse on Rosgil and Ralfland Common near the end of January.
We announced some very sad news, that Lee Schofield, was hanging up his Site Manager boots and leaving our team! Read his final blog here.
February
We celebrated planting our 200th tree in Celebration Wood! Huge thanks to locals and visitors alike who have supported this fantastic scheme. Whether in memory of a life, or to mark a special occasion, every tree in Celebration Wood has a story. Find out more here.
We ran our first Tree ID for Beginners walks in Naddle Forest, expertly led by Wardens Pete and Richard. If you’d like to book onto 2025’s walks, details are on our events page here.
It’s always a tense time when our cattle need TB testing, and because we’re in a hot spot, they’re tested every 6 months (low risk areas are every 4 years). But were delighted that they passed and continued to be TB free.
March
In early March, we attended the Haweswater Half Marathon with our information stand. If you’re setting yourself some running goals for 2025, why not sign up for this year’s event here. We’ll see you there!
Our hardy team of volunteers assisted our Wardens in planting 200 trees and hundreds of native plants on a volunteer day at our Naddle Farm.
We were announced as finalists in the prestigious Ashden Awards which we were absolutely over the moon with. Check out our blog here.
We launched our new dedication page. If you’d like to give a donation to support our work and leave a message for a loved one, whether to celebrate a birthday, in memory, Mother’s Day, or simply because you’re a Wild Haweswater fan, then you can do so here.
We waved a sad and fond farewell to Site Manager Lee, whose last day was 22 March 2024. Lee is now the Nature Recovery Lead (North) on the Penrith to Kendal Landscape Recovery Project, based at Lowther Estate.
April
We were excited to open our new Badger Hide thanks to funding from the Icthius Trust, and work began to restore our Spinning Barn, thanks to funding from FCC Communities Foundation and private donors. Discover more in our blog here. Dates are now available to book the Badger Hide in 2025 on our events page here.
It was a busy time for our farming team with lambing 325 lambs!
We took part in the second, successful Shap Outdoor Festival. Keep an eye on the Shap Old Courthouse website for 2025 events.
Survey Season was underway. Our Warden team carry out a range of different plant and bird surveys through the spring and summer months. Some stand out figures for this year were 32 singing male Pied Flycatchers (a Wild Haweswater record) and 23 singing male Redstarts. These rare migratory birds come to Wild Haweswater in spring, all the way from West Africa, to breed in our temperate rainforest of Naddle Forest. Up on the fells, Ring Ouzels, a rare mountain blackbird, saw 9 singing males recorded. Although not a record number (12), it was a welcome increase from the 5 recorded in 2023.
We were featured on BBC Radio 4 ‘On Your Farm’ with Caz Graham. Check it out here.
May
We celebrated Dawn Chorus Day, listening to nature’s music festival in Naddle Forest. If you’d like to book onto one of this year’s walks, visit our events page here.
The hardy volunteers from Cumbria Badger Vaccination Project started their second season vaccinating all the Badgers here at Wild Haweswater against TB, showing there is a humane alternative to culling. Donate to support their work here.
Our farming team continued to be busy bringing new life into the world, with 9 calves born on the farm.
It was an honour that plants from our nursery were featured in the ‘Flood Resilient Garden‘ which won a Silver Award at the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show!
As part of Shap Outdoor Festival, our pals at Cumbria Lichen and Bryophytes Group ran another successful lichen event in Naddle Forest. If you’d like to join them on their upcoming meet in January, details are here.
Our friends from Fell Pony Adventures started another sunny (often rainy but still super fun) season here at Wild Haweswater. If you’d like to join a wild camping, pack pony trek with them in 2025, visit their website here for details.
June
We recognised the outstanding contribution of our brilliant volunteers on National Volunteers Week.
A rainbow of wildflowers and kaleidoscope of insects were out and about on sunny days throughout Wild Haweswater.
We were visited by the RSPB’s UK Ecology Team to see how we’re getting on, and also Professor Sir John Lawton who was visiting various parts of the Cumbria Connect programme, which we are a partner in.
We were one of the sites in Cumbria and Lancashire hosting this year’s BTO Youth Camp. It was fantastic to meet such enthusiastic and knowledgeable young people. Read their blog about it here.
We were honoured, delighted and thrilled to be announced as winners of the Ashden Award for Nature-based Solutions at the prestigious ceremony in London. The Ashden Awards are basically the climate BAFTAs so we were super proud!
- Read more in our Ashden Awards winners blog here.
- Check out our Ashden Awards winners video here.
- Watch highlights from the award ceremony, including part of the acceptance speech by our People and Partnerships Manager Annabel here.
July
We celebrated National Meadows Day with a couple of walks in the beautiful Swindale Meadows. We’ve got more planned for summer 2025, so keep an eye on our events page.
Our farming team were busy with sheep shearing. It was also time for bulling, when Racy Ghyll Willy Nelson, the Belted Galloway Bull we share with Hill Top Farm, comes to wine and dine our cows.
The Cumbria Connect Science Team, who carry out scientific research into our work at Wild Haweswater, as well as other areas of the Lowther Valley, carried out moth trapping on Mardale Common, ably assisted by our new Argocat. This clever aquatic vehicle has 8-wheels and can cross the boggiest of ground, helping our scientists to get their kit (like heavy moth traps and their batteries) onto remote, steep parts of the site. Thanks go to the Icthius Trust and other private donors for funding this vital piece of kit.
August
We began looking for volunteers for our Celebration Wood. If you’d like to be involved, check out the details here.
The sun vaguely shone to allow our farming team to cut hay, but sadly it didn’t stay out for long enough, so it all had to be baled as haylage rather than our usual small hay bales.
We ran public surveys for those living in Penrith, Askham, Bampton, Shap, Orton, Tebay and the areas in between, to gather thoughts on what makes you feel connected to this area with its special landscapes, nature, heritage and communities, to help inform our work going forwards. This survey was part of a government-funded project to restore nature and celebrate heritage in the fells and valleys of the Lake District Eastern Fells and improve public access, especially for those people living locally who may currently not be able to come here.
With wildflowers and some trees setting seed, it was time for seed collection, where our nursery team, wardens and volunteers head out to gather seed for growing on in our nursery. It’s important to us that we source the seed locally from site, to reduce disease risk and to ensure that the resulting plants and trees are hardy enough to cope with the weather and terrain of Wild Haweswater!
We officially announced the arrival of our new Site Manager Glen Swainson. Read more in our blog here.
September
We surveyed for Marsh Fritillary Butterfly caterpillars in Swindale and were absolutely made up to find 101 webs with dozens and sometimes hundreds of caterpillars in each, madly munching on Devil’s Bit Scabious – their favoured food plant. The webs are spun by the caterpillars themselves to help protect them from predators and a wasp that parasitises them. It is also thought their webs help them to regulate the temperature around them too. Find out more about when we originally discovered the Marsh Fritillaries in 2023 and how our native Cumbrian Fell Ponies helped their colonisation, in our blog here.
We were thrilled when our Badger Hide was a finalist in the Cumbria Life Magazine Awards – Best Tourist Attraction category. Although we didn’t win, we were delighted to be recognised amongst the best in the county.
The Cumbria Connect Science Team continued to monitor natural tree regeneration on Mardale Common, finding densities up to 230 trees per hectare! This was mostly Rowan, as a pioneer species that, along with Birch, is often the first out the gate when it comes to recolonising areas where trees would have been previously. Most of the new trees surveyed were 3-4 years old. The team were very excited to also find some regeneration of Juniper, one of the upland tree species we’re really keen to support. This regeneration has been achieved by changing the grazing from sheep to cattle and through deer control to more natural numbers, and shows what nature can do when given the chance to recover. People don’t think of the fells as having trees on them, as we’re so used to them not doing, with many assuming that’s because trees wouldn’t grow here. But they could and should be there and they do so much good for society and for nature – slowing the flow of water off the tops to help reduce flooding to homes downstream, improving our drinking water by naturally filtering it before it gets into reservoirs, making the landscape more resilient to the extremes in weather brought by climate change, and providing a more diverse habitat for wildlife to live in.
Assistant Wardens Richard and Rhys got well underway with making tree cages on Mardale Common. They’re leading on a huge scheme, that will take the next two winters, planting and protecting 16.5 thousand trees. All the tree cages are made of two fenceposts and welded mesh, so take a lot of hard work, in challenging, steep conditions to make.
We weren’t alone in experiencing a dazzling Aurora Borealis in the skies above Wild Haweswater. With virtually no artificial light here, the Northern Lights are a natural spectacle that our farming team are often treated to in Swindale. Just magic!
October
As Autumn gets underway, the fungi around Wild Haweswater comes out in force, which is always great to find.
We ran Rut on Foot Red Deer guided walks for the first time in a few years, seeing the sights and sounds of the Red Deer Stags bellowing at one another and being very interested in the hinds (females). We’ll be doing more this autumn, so keep an eye out for them on our events page.
Spikeamina the sheep, an expert escapologist, who is part Rough Fell, part Herdwick and part carpet was found, where she wasn’t meant to be, again.
We took part in the Penrith Winter Droving – Drovers Cup for the second year, and were delighted to come in second place overall. We won the hay bale carry, the pint carry and the tug-of-war! We need to work on our egg throwing and mash eating skills for next time!
Salmon were leaping in Swindale Beck, even up the waterfalls! The re-wiggling work we did back in 2016 means they have a lot more gravel and spawning options than they used to have.
Twiggy the Squirrel was launched, alongside her pals Pat the Cow, Milligan the Hedgehog and Gill and Isla the Salmon for the ‘Even Wilder Ideas About Flooding’ series. These lovable, creature-comforts style characters chat about how nature can help with flood management. Voiced by our People and Partnerships Manager Annabel, Twiggy talks the importance of trees.
- Read our blog on the making of the films here.
- Watch Twiggy here.
- Discover the full series, along with the original, award-winning ‘Wild Ideas About Flooding’ films here.
November
November is a month for trees!
Tree planting season begins again in Celebration Wood.
Our fantastic, new Estate Worker Will joined the team, with a long list of jobs to do. Find out more about him in our blog here.
We celebrated the importance of trees and in particular the temperate rainforest of Naddle Forest in National Tree Week. Read our blog here.
Our brilliant volunteers spent a volunteer work party day potting and caring for 1300 Junipers in the nursery!
We took part in Saturama, an incredible audio/visual installation at the Manchester Museum, by Werka Music and pals. They filmed in Naddle Forest throughout 2024, to create a magical experience, highlighting the importance of prtecting our remaining temperate rainforests.
December
We were thrilled to be a finalist in the National Park Protector Awards in the Nature category. Although we didn’t win, it was an honour to be nominated and a pleasure to be there amongst so many inspirational projects at the awards ceremony in the House of Lords .
Students from Sedbergh School planted 200 Alder trees and 40 Juniper trees as part of our landscape restoration in Swindale. Huge thanks for all your hard work and to our pal Ruth from At Nature’s Pace for organising the day.
Wild Intrigue advertised a rare and exciting opportunity to become their new Wild Hides Ranger! You’ve got until 5 January 2025 to apply here!
We waved goodbye to one of our Wardens Pete who is off to an exciting new job at Cumbria Wildlife Trust on their Skiddaw Forest project. We also said a fond farewell to our Lake District Eastern Fells Landscape Recovery team Jane, Katie and Steve, as their 2-year project development phase came to an end. There’s a few more months to finish off the reports by the summer. We’re hoping to find out towards the end of 2025 if we’ve got 20 years of government funding for our landscape recovery work, so fingers crossed!
We closed the year by appearing on BBC World Service’s “People Fixing the World” programme, which was brilliant to be part of. Listen here.
That’s a wrap! Thank you to all our colleagues, volunteers, partners, members, supporters and followers for all your support in 2024. Here’s to more adventures in 2025.
Discover more about the work of the RSPB and United Utilities at Wild Haweswater here: wildhaweswater.co.uk
Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for updates.
Image credits: 1) Red Squirrel by Wild Intrigue (2) Black Grouse by Patrick Neaves (3) Celebration Wood Officer Bea planting the 200th tree by People and Partnerships Manager Annabel (4) former Site Manager Lee Schofield on his last day planting his tree in Celebration Wood by Annabel (5) Male and female Pied Flycatcher by Wild Intrigue (6) some of our cattle and their new calves by Livestock Assistant Faith (7) Annabel amongst all the other winners at the Ashden Awards by Ashden (8) the Argocat carrying the moth trap up to Mardale Common by Conservation Scientist Mo (9) new Site Manager Glen Swainson by Annabel (10) Northern Lights over Swindale by Faith (11) Twiggy the Red Squirrel (12) Nursery staff and volunteers and all the potted Juniper by Tree Nursery Officer Jo (13) Our vision for Wild Haweswater in 2025 illustrated by Richard Allen Illustrator.
– Blog by Annabel Rushton, RSPB People and Partnerships Manager for Wild Haweswater. Posted 31 December 2024.
