Welcome to Southwick Wood Bullfinch Your local Wildlife Trust protects wildlife and countryside for people to enjoy in This nature reserve is a surviving fragment of a vast mediaeval hunting Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Peterborough. We ground known as the Rockingham Forest that once spanned northeast are a charity dependent on voluntary contributions. Northamptonshire. It is an important example of ancient woodland, To contact us about this reserve or about how you can support us please write to: which is a rare and declining wildlife habitat in the UK. While other The Wildlife Trust, Lings House, Billing Lings, Northampton NN3 8BE, woods have been lost by clearance and to agriculture, Southwick Wood or telephone: 01604 405285 E-mail:northamptonshire has retained its valuable wildlife since at least 1600 AD. @wildlifebcnp.org To join the Wildlife Trust please contact the Membership Manager, What to look for meadowsweet. Along with The Wildlife Trust, The Manor House, No public access beyond the Broad Street, Great Cambourne, The impressive large oaks provide habitats for bramble these provide reserve boundary. Cambridge CB3 6DH, great spotted woodpeckers, roosting pipstrelle nectar for insects like or telephone: 01954 713500. butterflies, including the For the sake of wildlife please E-mail:[email protected] bats, fungi and wood-boring beetles. Look out keep dogs on leads.Thank you. Website: www.wildlifebcnp.org for the glorious red leaves of wild service trees yellow winged brimstone (one The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, in autumn. These trees and the spectacular of the first butterflies to emerge Northamptonshire and Peterborough. in spring) and speckled wood. If Registered charity no: 1000412 carpet of bluebells and wood melick are Bluebell indicators of the wood’s ancient origins. you’re quiet you may come across fallow deer grazing. We monitor the wood to ensure our management is This reserve is supported by: In the late 1960s areas of the wood were conserving the important wildlife you find here. replanted to replace elm trees felled following How the Trust cares for this reserve the spread of Dutch elm disease. Rides and glades are mown in late summer to To reverse the loss of woodland we are creating These plantation areas provide encourage wildflowers. Ride-side trees and new woodland on an arable field, where Dodhaws cover for birds like woodcock, shrubs are cut back periodically to create Wood once stood. In time it will develop naturally to bullfinch, and one of Britain’s sheltered, sunny conditions that allow link Southwick and Short Wood, making the smallest birds – the wren. insects to thrive. woodlands more robust to climate change and creating a wildlife corridor The damp rides and glades We are gradually removing guards from for species to move freely. hold a myriad of summer planted trees. Some trees will be removed wildflowers, including wild to encourage a varied age of trees and We hope you enjoy your visit. Wild angelica, ragged robin and permit more light to the ground flora. service-tree Brimstone Protecting Wildlife close to home.