Please feel free to record any of your interesting sightings from visits to the Trap Grounds below.

Header photograph credit Nicola Devine

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916 entries.
Holly wrote on 3 March, 2024
A kingfisher flying up and down the mill stream, and then my binoculars focussed in on a healthy looking water vole in the reed bed, sitting up and chomping on something. I was on the other side of the bank, just beyond the dragonfly pond. My first sighting of a water vole; very exciting.
JDyson wrote on 2 March, 2024
Scarlet elfcups - lots of them! Kingfisher fishing in Swan Pond, jay, treecreeper on a willow by the stream, big crow cawing & overseeing everything, 3 adolescent cygnets, almost white now, eating the floating duckweed. Songthrush calling. Lots of flitting calling small birds inc long tailed tits, great tits (‘teacher! teacher!’) All in last three days.
Holly wrote on 21 January, 2024
A redwing and some scarlet elfcups.
Julie wrote on 13 December, 2023
Today. Heard: green woodpecker calling its laughing call several times. Saw: four squirrels all together in some sort of squirrel pow-wow by the newt pond; two wrens in the undergrowth and log plies by board-walk; a jay; a team of long-tailed tits; two blue-tits. Various small birds flitting among the tree tops and twigs; a moorhen. On 20 Nov: a jay well-camouflaged as it dug amongst the brown leaf litter on the ground; two well-grown cygnets on the lake. On 15 Nov: the flitting pale yellow of a grey wagtail on the stream in the adjoining housing estate; a heron. 11th Nov: a jay; and I watched a kingfisher as it flew, zooming flat over the water along the canal from Frenchay Rd Bridge southwards, stopping and perching from time to time, inc on the weeping willow of No. 21 Hayfield Rd., from where I have often spotted kingfishers fishing. I saw a kingfisher again two days ago also, flying a similar trajectory, but perching on the fence of No. 33, then darting to fly off under Aristotle Bridge. 23rd Oct: I counted 13 earthstar fungi in one group just off Frog Lane. This is the largest number in one area that I have so far ever counted in the Trap Grounds – although I see them every autumn.. 5th Oct: a jay burying an acorn on the leaf litter and soil of the newly cleared area by the boardwalk.
Rahel, age 12 wrote on 12 November, 2023
Today we saw the Great Crested Grebe again in the same tree, in the same spot. Perhaps its usual roost? It would sit for a while and then suddenly outstretch its wings and stand like that for a minute or so. Has anyone else seen it?
Rahel, age 12 wrote on 16 October, 2023
A few days ago we saw a Great Crested Grebe swimming in the canal near the Jericho wharves, and then saw it again sitting in a bough of a large tree across from the trap grounds. A month or so ago, I also saw a Water Vole swimming across the canal.
Clare Weiner wrote on 22 July, 2023
We saw 2 Muntjac deer resting under the old apple tree by the path, end of the Sycamore Glade. No time to get a photo they scarpered into the very tall grass in the meadow!
Matthew Lloyd wrote on 17 June, 2023
16th June: A large number of iris sawfly larvae on the yellow flag on the small pond with bench at the end of the boardwalk
Holly wrote on 13 June, 2023
3rd June: 2 deer in the reed bed at the south end of the stream. 8th June: 2 egrets at the south end of the stream.
Holly wrote on 25 May, 2023
There’s a very friendly chiffchaff that’s been calling by the boardwalk most evenings this week. I’ve stood quite close to it as it chirps from some low hanging branches. It always has food or perhaps nest items in its beak.
Holly wrote on 25 May, 2023
This evening: several little swimmers that I thought were baby water vole but now I’m wondering if they were shrews as they made a loud, high pitched squeaking sound (which I managed to record). I also caught the little creatures on video but I still can’t identify them. Any idea? Seen swimming underneath the bridge that leads to the dragonfly pond.
Catherine Robinson wrote on 25 May, 2023
Large Grass Snake swimming in the Frog Lane ditch yesterday (24 May 2023).
Catherine Robinson wrote on 23 May, 2023
Cuckoo calling loud and clear and repeatedly at 11 am today. High in a tall willow in the wet woodland immediately south of Frog Lane. David Grieveson and his wife heard it too. And while we stood on the boardwalk listening to the cuckoo. we saw two muntjac walking along the east bank of the stream.
Clare Weiner wrote on 21 May, 2023
May 20th A hearing rather than a sighting: we heard a Cuckoo immediately on entering the Trap Grounds, we haven't heard one for some years (though we used to hear them when we first lived here in the 1980s) From the Boardwalk, we heard the Cuckoo's voice very loud indeed. We managed a short phone recording.
Erika Berenguer wrote on 7 May, 2023
On April 23rd a friend and I saw 3 muntjacs at the end of the reserve, opposite the salamander pond. We have it on video if it is of interest.
JDyson wrote on 1 May, 2023
A friend saw a reddish-brown stoat/weasel-type animal running across the canal towpath from the Trap Grounds yesterday morning. I saw an amazing flight display over the canal water next to the TG Saturday evening just as dusk was starting to fall – a brown bird, the approx size of a blackbird, was flying round and round and twisting a turning and it was all over in a flurry of seconds but it was fast and furious – then it flew off: I then saw it was a brown sparrowhawk – and what emerged from where the flurry had occurred was a bat. So the hawk had been trying to catch the bat but the bat had outsmarted the sparrow hawk in aerial acrobatics. Remarkable sight! Two or three mornings running and today again this evening a greenfinch churrrring from the tops of TG trees. Two days ago a tremendous racket of rapidly repeated 'clicks' or 'ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta...' high up in a willow on the towpath just beyond the TG, north of Frenchay Rd Bridge: then a pair of mistlethrushes flew out of the tree chasing off a crow. Today similarly – a single mistlethrush, the same alarm call, chasing possibly the same crow! I looked but couldn't see where their nest is; very high up I think. A few days ago, a brown sparrowhawk flying leisurely out of the TG over the canal. This evening a pair of song thrushes, foraging for worms in the damp leaf litter in TG along canal path. Female blackbird flying with a full beak to a bush. A young pinkish slowworm. Yesterday a single male swan on Swan Pond; today he was alone on the canal by TG. Where's his mate these days?
Clare Weiner wrote on 24 April, 2023
Spring is very much sprung in the Trap Grounds now (24 April) with Colts' Foot nearly over, and a field of Cowslips flowering. Also primroses, dandelions, white Comfry, apple blossom, and emerging Bluebells. There appear to be a pair of Canada Geese possibly with a nest beside the Swan Pond, at the end nearest the boardwalk.
Catherine Robinson wrote on 16 December, 2022
Phil Barnett saw a Water Rail from the boardwalk today.
Catherine Robinson wrote on 12 December, 2022
11 December 2022. Phil Barnett reported seeing a pair of Teal on Dragonfly Pond, and hearing a Water Rail calling from the reedbed.
Holly Symington wrote on 10 December, 2022
Delighted to have seen my first Water Rail today, about noon. It walked, slipping on the ice, from the Reed Bed to the other side of the stream, at the south end of the Grounds. I was about six metres away and it hadn’t seen me. Got a good view through my binoculars, but too caught up to take a photo! Also saw a Redwing (possibly 2) on a branch from the boardwalk, and a Treecreeper. Two very dark, almost black, ducks flew away from the Dragonfly Pond; I must have startled them. Would they be female Teal?