Birds

According to the RSPB, an 'estimated 40 million birds have vanished from the UK skies in just 50 years' due to intensive farming practices, the increased use of pesticides and increasing fragmentation and loss of habitat. What's more, they report that 56% of bird species in the UK are in decline and one in ten is critically endangered.

This staggering loss of wildlife makes protecting our last remaining pockets of woodland more important than ever. Kingsmeadows Estate is 17 acres, of which two-thirds are woodland. This rich, biodiverse habitat supports at least 51 different species of song bird, woodpeckers, wildfowl, corvids, owls and other birds of prey.

If you've never gotten out of bed at 5 am in early May to listen the dawn chorus, do it before it's too late.

Birds of Conservation Concern 5 (BoCC5)

In 2021, the UK's BoCC5 was updated to show that 70 species are now of 'highest conservation concern', more than double the number on the original BoCC from 1996. The Red List alone accounts for 29% of all UK bird species.

24 out the 51 species recorded at Kingsmeadows over the past 7 years are on the Red or Amber Lists – that means 47% of the species found here are endangered.

The importance of this woodland to our local biodiversity could not be more clear. Below are just a few of its highlights.